it, smiting the canvas
with such violence that I quite expected to see it fly out of the bolt-
ropes, while the brigantine, being only in ballast, rocked and staggered
like a drunken man. Fortunately, there remained just light enough to
enable us to trace the direction from which those tornadoes came. With
their help, therefore, Chips and I, who at once sprang to the wheel,
managed to get the ship's head round before the hurricane itself struck
us, Enderby going for'ard to stand by on the forecastle.

It announced its approach by a low, weird, unearthly moaning that with
terrifying rapidity swelled to a deafening compound of the shrieking
yell of the swooping wind and the hiss of the tempest-lashed sea as it
rushed, in the form of a wall of ghastly, heaped-up, phosphorescent foam
stretching from horizon to horizon, straight down upon the ship. The
spectacle of that unbridled outburst of elemental fury was awe-inspiring
beyond the power of words to describe, but it was terrifying too, as was
evidenced by Chips' remark, a moment before the gale struck us. Leaning
over toward me as we stood on opposite sides of the wheel, he yelled:

"Good-bye, sir! This is the finish. The ship ain't built that could
weather such an outfly as this!"

And I felt very much inclined to agree with him. To me it seemed
impossible that any combination of wood and metal, the work of men's
hands, however cunningly fashioned and deftly put together, could
withstand such a frenzied onslaught as that which was about to burst
upon us.

Another instant and we were within the hurricane's clutches. With a
yell of indescribable fury the blast struck us, and as the storm-wave
boiled in over our taffrail and swept along the deck, filling it to the
level of the rail and taking with it in its rush for'ard every movable
thing in its way, I saw the storm trysail fill, with a terrific jerk of
the doubled sheets, and then go flying away out of the bolt-ropes like a
sheet of tissue paper. Whether or not the remainder of our canvas had
withstood the strain I could not for the moment determine, for I was up
to the armpits in the surging water, pinned by it and the pressure of
the wind so hard up against the wheel that I momentarily expected to
feel my breast-bone collapse under the pressure. Luckily the gale came
up square astern, and hit us end-on; luckily, also, we were in ballast,
and the ship was therefore quite lively; nevertheless I felt the hull