whispered.

"No."

At that moment there was a sensation as of a hot puff of air behind us.
It literally struck my head just as if a great furnace door had been
opened, and the glow had shot out on to our necks.

"Here she comes," growled Tom Jecks; "and good luck to us."

And then, as if to carry out the idea of the opened furnace, it suddenly
grew lighter--a strange, weird, wan kind of light--and on either side,
and running away from us on to the land, the sea was in a wild froth as
if suddenly turned to an ocean of milk.

"Down with the sail!" shouted Mr Brooke, who had held on to the last
moment, so as to keep the boat as long as possible under his governance;
and quickly as disciplined men could obey the sail was lowered, and as
far as I could see they were in the act of stowing it along the side,
when it filled out with a loud report, and was snatched from their hands
and gone.

"Any one hurt?"

"No, sir," in chorus.

"Oars."

I heard the rattle of the two pairs being thrust out. Next Mr Brooke's
words, yelled out by my ear--"sit fast!" and then there was a heavy
blow, heavy but soft and pressing, followed by the stinging on my neck
as of hundreds of tiny whips, and then we were rushing along over the
white sea, in the midst of a mass--I can call it nothing else--of spray,
deafened, stunned, feeling as if each moment I should be torn out of my
seat, and as if the boat itself were being swept along like lightning
over the sea, riding, not on heavy water, but on the spray.

Then all was one wild, confusing shriek and roar. I was deafened;
something seemed to clutch me by the throat and try to strangle me; huge
soft hands grasped me by the body, and tugged and dragged at me, to tear
me from my hold; and then, two arms that were not imaginary, but solid
and real, went round me, and grasped the thwart on which I sat, holding
me down, while I felt a head resting on my lap.

I could see nothing but a strange, dull, whitish light when I managed to
hold my eyelids up for a moment, but nothing else was visible; and above
all--the deafening roar, the fearful buffeting and tearing at me--there
was one thing which mastered, and that was the sensation of being
stunned and utterly confused. I was, as it were, a helpless nothing,
beaten and driven by the wind and spray, onward, onward, like a scrap of
chaff. Somebody was clinging to me, partly to save himself, partly to
keep me from being dragged out of the boat