and cooked food down from the galley. In this connection I cannot
forbear relating my first experience with a boarding sea.

"Look sharp or you'll get doused," was Mr. Mugridge's parting injunction,
as I left the galley with a big tea-pot in one hand, and in the hollow of
the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked bread. One of the hunters, a
tall, loose-jointed chap named Henderson, was going aft at the time from
the steerage (the name the hunters facetiously gave their midships
sleeping quarters) to the cabin. Wolf Larsen was on the poop, smoking
his everlasting cigar.

"'Ere she comes. Sling yer 'ook!" the cook cried.

I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley door
slide shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like a madman for
the main rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till he was many feet
higher than my head. Also I saw a great wave, curling and foaming,
poised far above the rail. I was directly under it. My mind did not
work quickly, everything was so new and strange. I grasped that I was in
danger, but that was all. I stood still, in trepidation. Then Wolf
Larsen shouted from the poop:

"Grab hold something, you--you Hump!"

But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might have
clung, and was met by the descending wall of water. What happened after
that was very confusing. I was beneath the water, suffocating and
drowning. My feet were out from under me, and I was turning over and
over and being swept along I knew not where. Several times I collided
against hard objects, once striking my right knee a terrible blow. Then
the flood seemed suddenly to subside and I was breathing the good air
again. I had been swept against the galley and around the steerage
companion-way from the weather side into the lee scuppers. The pain from
my hurt knee was agonizing. I could not put my weight on it, or, at
least, I thought I could not put my weight on it; and I felt sure the leg
was broken. But the cook was after me, shouting through the lee galley
door:

"'Ere, you! Don't tyke all night about it! Where's the pot? Lost
overboard? Serve you bloody well right if yer neck was broke!"

I managed to struggle to my feet. The great tea-pot was still in my
hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was consumed
with indignation, real or feigned.

"Gawd blime me if you ayn't a slob. Wot 're you good for anyw'y, I'd
like to