The Survivors of the Chancellor by Jules Verne

October 8th to October 13th -- The wind is blowing hard from the northeast; and the Chancellor under low-reefed topsail and foresail, and labouring against a heavy sea, has been obliged to be brought ahull. The joists and girders all creak again until one's teeth are set on edge. I am the only passenger not remaining below; but I prefer being on deck notwithstanding the driving rain, fine as dust, which penetrates to my very skin. We have been driven along in this fashion for the best part of two days; the "stiffish breeze" has gradually freshened into "a gale; " the topgallants have been lowered, and, as I write, the wind is blowing with a velocity of fifty or sixty miles an hour. Although the Chancellor has many good points, her drift is considerable, and we have been carried far to the south we can only guess at our precise position, as the cloudy atmosphere entirely precludes us from taking the sun's altitude.

All along throughout this period, my fellow-passengers are totally ignorant of the extraordinary course that we are taking England lies to the northeast, yet we are sailing directly southeast, and Robert Curtis owns that he is quite bewildered; he cannot comprehend why the captain, ever since this northeasterly gale has been blowing, should persist in allowing the ship to drive to the south, instead of tacking to the northwest until she gets into better quarters.