out, I discovered the air to be full of spray, beaten as fine as
dust, and then, before I could note aught else, a little gout of water
took me in the face with such force as to deprive me of breath; so that I
had to descend beneath the canvas for a little while.

So soon as I was recovered, I thrust forth my head again, and now I had
some sight of the terrors around us. As each huge sea came towards us,
the boat shot up to meet it, right up to its very crest, and there, for
the space of some instants, we would seem to be swamped in a very ocean
of foam, boiling up on each side of the boat to the height of many feet.
Then, the sea passing from under us, we would go swooping dizzily down
the great, black, froth-splotched back of the wave, until the oncoming
sea caught us up most mightily. Odd whiles, the crest of a sea would hurl
forward before we had reached the top, and though the boat shot upward
like a veritable feather, yet the water would swirl right over us, and we
would have to draw in our heads most suddenly; in such cases the wind
flapping the cover down so soon as our hands were removed. And, apart
from the way in which the boat met the seas, there was a very sense of
terror in the air; the continuous roaring and howling of the storm; the
_screaming_ of the foam, as the frothy summits of the briny mountains
hurled past us, and the wind that tore the breath out of our weak human
throats, are things scarce to be conceived.

Presently, we drew in our heads, the sun having vanished again, and
nailed down the canvas once more, and so prepared for the night.

From here on until the morning, I have very little knowledge of any
happenings; for I slept much of the time, and, for the rest, there was
little to know, cooped up beneath the cover. Nothing save the
interminable, thundering swoop of the boat downwards, and then the halt
and upward hurl, and the occasional plunges and surges to larboard or
starboard, occasioned, I can only suppose, by the indiscriminate might
of the seas.

I would make mention here, how that I had little thought all this while
for the peril of the other boat, and, indeed, I was so very full of our
own that it is no matter at which to wonder. However, as it proved, and
as this is a most suitable place in which to tell it, the boat that held
Josh and the rest of the crew came through the storm with safety; though
it was not until many years afterwards that I had the good fortune to
hear from