d always above the horizon--the
tempest increased, and the captain and his lieutenant, almost unable
to hear each other's voices amid the elemental strife,
communicated mostly by gestures, which is as good a mode as speech
between sailors.

I could not make up my mind to retire to my cabin, and, seeking the
shelter of the roundhouse, I remained on deck, observing the weather
phenomena, and the skill, certainty, celerity, and effect with which
the crew carried out the orders of the captain and West. It was a
strange and terrible experience for a landsman, even one who had
seen so much of the sea and seamanship as I had. At the moment of a
certain difficult manoeuvre, four men had to climb to the crossbars
of the fore-mast in order to reef the mainsail. The first who sprang
to the ratlines was Hunt. The second was Martin Holt; Burry and one
of the recruits followed them. I could not have believed that any
man could display such skill and agility as Hunt's. His hands and
feet hardly caught the ratlines. Having reached the crossbars first,
he stretched himself on the ropes to the end of the yard, while Holt
went to the other end, and the two recruits remained in the middle.

While the men were working, and the tempest was raging round us, a
terrific lurch of the ship to starboard under the stroke of a
mountainous wave, flung everything on the deck into wild confusion,
and the sea rushed in through the scupper-holes. I was knocked down,
and for some moments was unable to rise.

So great had been the incline of the schooner that the end of the
yard of the mainsail was plunged three or four feet into the crest
of a wave. When it emerged Martin Holt, who had been astride on it,
had disappeared. A cry was heard, uttered by the sailing-master,
whose arm could be seen wildly waving amid the whiteness of the
foam. The sailors rushed to the side and flung out one a rope,
another a cask, a third a spar--in short, any object of which
Martin Holt might lay hold. At the moment when I struggled up to my
feet I caught sight of a massive substance which cleft the air and
vanished in the whirl of the waves.

Was this a second accident? No! it was a voluntary action, a deed of
self-sacrifice. Having finished his task, Hunt had thrown himself
into the sea, that he might save Martin Holt.

"Two men overboard!"

Yes, two--one to save the other. And were they not about to perish
together?

The two heads rose to the foaming surface of t