ook up from our work, and we beheld him, with his eyes
almost starting from their sockets, glaring and pointing ahead. A
single glance in that direction sufficed to account for his terror. For
there, sweeping down upon us with deadly implacability, towered a
perfect mountain of a sea, its front almost as steep as the side of a
house, and its foaming, hissing crest reared threateningly aloft as high
as our lower-mastheads--had they been standing. It was at once apparent
to us all that, pinned down as the schooner was at that moment, by the
bulk of the water in her interior having concentrated itself in the fore
part of her, she could not possibly lift in time to rise over the summit
of that on-sweeping sea, it must inevitably break on board her, sweep
her from stem to stern, and send her to the bottom! For a second we all
stood, petrified with consternation; then, with a yell of "Hold on
everybody for your lives!" I dashed to the companion opening and
shouted to those below, "On deck, all hands of you; up you come, men,
this instant; you have not a second to lose!"

A dreadful, wailing cry of despair floated upward from below in response
to my warning, and was echoed by the people on deck as that awful liquid
mountain hovered above us, seeming to pause for an instant, as though in
sentient enjoyment of our helplessness and terror. The next moment its
crest curled over and the whole mass of water seemed to hurl itself
headlong upon the hapless schooner, foaming in over her bows and burying
them fathoms deep in its heart. I felt the poor shattered hull quiver
and tremble beneath me like a frightened thing as the giant wave smote
her, and then I was seized by the on-rushing water, swept off my feet,
overwhelmed, whirled helplessly hither and thither in the midst of a
medley of whirling wreckage, flying ropes'-ends, and struggling men.
Opening my eyes I beheld the hull of the schooner, a short distance
away, standing almost perpendicular, and slowly gliding downwards, bows
first. Even as I looked she vanished into the dark profundity beneath,
and then I directed my glances above me. It seemed that I was fathoms
deep, for the phosphorescent foam that boiled overhead looked almost as
far aloft as a frigate's lower yard; and by the same ghastly
phosphorescent light I could distinguish vaguely a number of swirling
objects, some of which appeared to be merely inanimate wreckage, while
others looked like struggling human b