had stirred me more profoundly
than was I stirred by this actual struggle before my eyes.

I have repeatedly said that the sea makes one hard. I now realized how
hard I had become as I stood there at the break of the poop in my wind-
shipped, spray-soaked pyjamas. I felt no solicitude for the forecastle
humans who struggled in peril of their lives beneath me. They did not
count. Ah--I was even curious to see what might happen, did they get
caught by those crashing avalanches of sea ere they could gain the safety
of the fife-rail.

And I saw. Mr. Pike, in the lead, of course, up to his waist in rushing
water, dashed in, caught the flying wreckage with a turn of rope, and
fetched it up short with a turn around one of the port mizzen-shrouds.
The _Elsinore_ flung down to port, and a solid wall of down-toppling
green upreared a dozen feet above the rail. The men fled to the fife-
rail. But Mr. Pike, holding his turn, held on, looked squarely into the
wall of the wave, and received the downfall. He emerged, still holding
by the turn the captured bridge.

The feeble-minded faun (the stone-deaf man) led the way to Mr. Pike's
assistance, followed by Tony, the suicidal Greek. Paddy was next, and in
order came Shorty, Henry the training-ship boy, and Nancy, last, of
course, and looking as if he were going to execution.

The deck-water was no more than knee-deep, though rushing with torrential
force, when Mr. Pike and the six men lifted the section of bridge and
started for'ard with it. They swayed and staggered, but managed to keep
going.

The carpenter saw the impending ocean-mountain first. I saw him cry to
his own men and then to Mr. Pike ere he fled to the fife-rail. But Mr.
Pike's men had no chance. Abreast of the 'midship-house, on the
starboard side, fully fifteen feet above the rail and twenty above the
deck, the sea fell on board. The top of the 'midship-house was swept
clean of the splintered boat. The water, impacting against the side of
the house, spouted skyward as high as the crojack-yard. And all this, in
addition to the main bulk of the wave, swept and descended upon Mr. Pike
and his men.

They disappeared. The bridge disappeared. The _Elsinore_ rolled to port
and dipped her deck full from rail to rail. Next, she plunged down by
the head, and all this mass of water surged forward. Through the
creaming, foaming surface now and then emerged an arm, or a head, or a
back, while cruel edges o