argo.

"It was after a few eruptions from the bottom of the sea that he got to
be a nuisance; he was keenly interested in the strange dead fish and
nondescript creatures that had been thrown up. He declared them new,
unknown to science, and wore out my patience with entreaties to haul
them aboard for examination and classification.

"I obliged him for a time, until the decks stank with dead fish, and
the men got mutinous. Then I refused to advance the interests of
science any farther, and, in spite of his excitement and pleadings,
refused to litter the decks any more. But he got all he wanted of the
unclassified and unknown before long.

"Tidal wave, you know, is a name we give to any big wave, and it has no
necessary connection with the tides. It may be the big third wave of a
series--just a little bigger than usual; it may be the ninth, tenth,
and eleventh waves merged into one huge comber by uneven wind pressure;
it may be the back wash from an earthquake that depresses the nearest
coast, and it may be--as I think it was in our case--a wave sent out by
an upheaval from the sea bed. At any rate, we got it, and we got it
just after a tremendous spouting of water and mud, and a thick cloud of
steam on the northern horizon.

"We saw a seeming rise to the horizon, as though caused by refraction,
but which soon eliminated refraction as a cause by its becoming visible
in its details--its streaks of water and mud, its irregular upper edge,
the occasional combers that appeared on this edge, and the terrific
speed of its approach. It was a wave, nothing else, and coming at forty
knots at least.

"There was little that we could do; there was no wind, and we headed
about west, showing our broadside; yet I got the men at the downhauls,
clewlines, and stripping lines of the lighter kites; but before a man
could leave the deck to furl, that moving mountain hit us, and buried
us on our beam ends just as I had time to sing out: 'Lash yourselves,
every man.'

"Then I needed to think of my own safety and passed a turn of the
mizzen gaff-topsail downhaul about me, belaying to a pin as the
cataclysm hit us. For the next two minutes--although it seemed an hour,
I did not speak, nor breathe, nor think, unless my instinctive grip on
the turns of the downhaul on the pin may have been an index of thought.
I was under water; there was roaring in my ears, pain in my lungs, and
terror in my heart.

"Then there came a lessening of the tu