the deck, smashing everything breakable into kindling-wood, and almost
drowning the two, whom instinct and long practice helped to cling, in
spite of the fact that the very breath was beaten out of their bodies.

But this, bad as it seemed, was only the beginning of troubles. There
were hours of just such experiences; and Reuben's strength, robust as it
was, began to fail him beneath the strain.

In such storms there is no rest for the sailor. Something is needed of
him every moment, especially upon these fishing smacks and schooners,
which carry such small crews; and often forty or more hours will pass
with literally no rest at all.

They labored on until evening set in once more, and all hands had just
been ordered aft to secure a broken spar, when Nick the boy uttered a
fearful cry, which gave every man a start. They followed the direction
of his horrified gaze, and saw a danger which paralyzed the stoutest
nerve. Just ahead was a "gray-back,"--sailor parlance for a wave which
is to all other waves as a mountain to a hillock,--and Reuben felt their
doom was sealed, for the old Nautilus, disabled as she was already,
could never stand that terrific onslaught.

With one short, desperate prayer he closed his eyes and clung with the
grip of the dying to the shattered spar.

It was all over in a moment. A roar like a thousand thunders, a stunning
blow impossible to imagine, and then--a broad, wreck-strewn expanse,
amid which those few poor atoms of humanity showed but as black dots for
a moment, soon to be sucked beneath the seething waves.