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Our ship was now all cased with ice , - hull , spars , and standing rigging ; - and the running rigging so stiff that we could hardly bend it so as to delay it , or , still worse , take a knot with it ; and the sails nearly as stiff as sheet iron . Though we had now the same wind , and were in the same latitude with the Pilgrim on her passage out , yet we were nearly twelve hundred miles to the westward of her course ; for the captain , depending upon the strong south-west winds which prevail in high southern latitudes during the winter months , took the full advantage of the trades , and stood well to the westward , so far that we passed within about two hundred miles of Ducie 's Island . This pacified them a little , but Jack had got a notion that a poor lad was to be imposed upon , and did not distinguish very clearly ; and though I knew that I was in no fault , and , in fact , had barely escaped the grossest injustice , yet I felt that my berth was getting to be a disagreeable one . Some blamed the captain for loading his ship so deep , when he knew what he must expect ; while others said that the wind was always southwest , off the Cape , in the winter ; and that , running before it , we should not mind the seas so much . When beaten , they were taken from this pole by two more , and placed upon a platform of boards ; and ten or a dozen men , with their trowsers rolled up , were constantly going , back and forth , from the platform to the boat , which was kept off where she would just float , with the hides upon their heads . There was only one of our crew who had been off there in the winter , and that was in a whaleship , much lighter and higher than our ship ; yet he said they had man-killing weather for twenty days without intermission , and their decks were swept twice , and they were all glad enough to see the last of it . I got a knot of six or eight about me , and no one could have had a more attentive audience . He told them what he had heard , and said that he did not believe that they would try to do any such thing as was intimated ; that they had always been good men , - obedient , and knew their duty , and he had no fault to find with them ; and asked them what they had to complain of - said that no one could say that he was slow to carry sail , ( which was true enough ;) and that , as soon as he thought it was safe and proper , he should make sail . Finding neither willing to make an offer for reconciliation , he called all hands up , ( for the captain was ashore , and he could do as he chose aboard , ) ranged the crew in the waist , marked a line on the deck , brought the two boys up to it , making them " toe the mark ; " then made the bight of a rope fast to a belaying pin , and stretched it across the deck , bringing it just above their waists .