of a falling sack of potatoes. Then we returned and sat down on the deck
again, and smoked and talked in little gusts and jerks. The night was so
lovely, and our brains were so full of suppressed excitement of one sort
and another, that we did not feel inclined to turn in. For nearly an
hour we sat thus, and then, I think, we both dozed off. At least I have
a faint recollection of Leo sleepily explaining that the head was not a
bad place to hit a buffalo, if you could catch him exactly between the
horns, or send your bullet down his throat, or some nonsense of the
sort.

Then I remember no more; till suddenly--a frightful roar of wind, a
shriek of terror from the awakening crew, and a whip-like sting of water
in our faces. Some of the men ran to let go the haulyards and lower the
sail, but the parrel jammed and the yard would not come down. I sprang
to my feet and hung on to a rope. The sky aft was dark as pitch, but the
moon still shone brightly ahead of us and lit up the blackness. Beneath
its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet high or more, was
rushing on to us. It was on the break--the moon shone on its crest and
tipped its foam with light. On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by
the awful squall behind it. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, I saw
the black shape of the whale-boat cast high into the air on the crest of
the breaking wave. Then--a shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foam,
and I was clinging for my life to the shroud, ay, swept straight out
from it like a flag in a gale.

We were pooped.

The wave passed. It seemed to me that I was under water for
minutes--really it was seconds. I looked forward. The blast had torn out
the great sail, and high in the air it was fluttering away to leeward