The tidal wave broke into surf an eighth of a mile out, and came on
us in a tumble of foam, hissing and roaring like a loose menagerie,
and down she comes on the _Helen Mar_, and up goes the _Helen
Mar_ climbing through the foam. Me, I hung on to the capstan.

The next thing I knew we were shooting past the upper town, up the
valley of the Jiron, and there wasn't any lower town to be seen. We
were bound for the Andes. The crest of the wave was a few rods ahead,
and the air was full of spray. I saw the Sarasara too, having a nice
time spitting things out of her mouth, and it looked to me like she
waggled her head with the fun she was having. But the _Helen
Mar_ was having no fun, nor me, nor Stevey Todd.

It was four miles the _Helen Mar_ went in a few minutes, going
slower toward the end. By-and-by she hit bottom, and keeled over
against a bunch of old fruit trees on the bank of the river, and lay
still, or only swayed a little, the water swashing in her hold. Right
ahead were the foothills of the Cordilleras, and the gorge where the
Jiron came down, and where the mule path came down beside the river.
The big wave went up to the foot of the hills, and now it came back
peaceful. Then it was quiet everywhere, except for the sobbing of the
ebb among the tree trunks, and afterward lower down in the bed of the
river. The ground rose to the foothills there, and the channel of the
river lay deep below, with a sandy bank maybe twenty feet high on
either side, and on the bank above the river lay the _Helen
Mar_, propped up by the fruit trees.

By dusk there was no water except in the river, and some pools, but
there were heaps of wreckage. Stevey Todd and I got down and looked