n it comes, faster and higher, its cavernous hollow
roaring and its overtopping crest snarling viciously as it turns
forward, high above the poop. 'Hold on for your lives!' shout the
mates and skipper. They are not a moment too soon. The sails are
blanketed, and the ship seems as if she was actually being drawn, stern
first, into the very jaws of the sea. A shuddering pause . . . and
then, with a stunning crash, the whole devouring mass bursts full on
deck. The stricken _Victoria_ reels under the terrific shock, and then
lies dead another anxious minute, utterly helpless, her {124} deck
awash with a smother of foaming water, and her crew apparently drowned.
But presently her stern emerges through the dark, green-grey
after-shoulder of the wave. She responds to the lift of the mighty
barrel with a gallant effort to shake herself free. She rises,
dripping from stem to stern. Her sails refill and draw her on again.
And when the next wave comes she is just able to take it--but no more.

The skipper has already decided to heave to and wait for the storm to
blow itself out. But there is still too much canvas on her. Even the
main lower topsail has to come in. The courses, or lowest square
sails, have all come in before. The little canvas required for lying
to must neither be too high nor yet too low. If it is too high, it
gives the wind a very dangerous degree of leverage. If it is too low,
it violently strains the whole vessel by being completely blanketed
when in the trough of the sea and then suddenly struck full when on the
crest. The main lower topsail is at just the proper height. But only
the fore and mizzen ones are wanted to balance the pressure aloft. So
in it has to come. And a dangerous bit of work it gives; for it has to
be hauled up from right amidships, where the deck is wetter than a
{125} half-tide rock. The yellow-oilskinned crew tail on and heave.
_Yo--ho_! _Yo--hay_! 'Hitch it! Quick, for your lives, hang on,
all!' A mountainous wall of black water suddenly leaps up and crashes
through the windward rigging. The watch goes down to a man, some
hanging on to the rope as if suspended in the middle of a waterfall,
for the deck is nearly perpendicular, while others wash off altogether
and fetch up with a dazing, underwater thud against the lee side. Inch
by inch the men haul in, waist-deep most of the time and often
completely under. _Yo--ho_! _Yo--hay_! _harrhh_, and they all hold
bre