to be a man-o'-war as a merchantman--she had
appeared to be quite large enough to be the former, in that brief,
indistinct glance that we had caught of her,--and if she happened to be
a man-o'-war we should probably find ourselves in the wrong box when
daylight broke. On the other hand she had not appeared to be so large
as to preclude the possibility of her being a merchantman--a Spanish or
Dutch West Indiaman; and should she prove to be either of these, she
would be well worth fighting for. I considered the question carefully,
and at length came to the conclusion that the risk of following her was
quite worth taking, and we accordingly held all on as we were.

Meanwhile the gale was steadily growing fiercer, and the sea rising
higher and becoming more dangerous with every mile that we traversed in
our blind, headlong flight before it; and it appeared to me that the
option whether I should continue the pursuit of the stranger would soon
be taken from me by the imperative necessity to heave-to if I would
avoid the almost momentarily increasing danger of the schooner being
pooped, when a piercing cry of "Breakers ahead?" burst from the two men
on the look-out forward, instantly followed by the still more startling
cry of "Breakers on the port bow!"

"Breakers on the starboard bow!"

I sprang to the rail and looked ahead. Merciful Heaven! it was true,
right athwart our path, as far as the eye could penetrate the gloom on
either bow, there stretched a barrier of wildly-leaping breakers and
spouting foam, gleaming spectrally against the midnight blackness of the
murky heavens; and even as I gazed, spell-bound, at the dreadful
spectacle I saw the black bulk of the strange ship outlined against the
ghostly whiteness, and in another instant she had swung broadside-on;
and as a perfect mountain of white foam leaped upon her, enfolding her
in its snowy embrace, her masts fell, and methought that, mingled with
the sudden, deafening roar of the trampling breakers, I caught the sound
of a despairing wail borne toward us against the wind.

Oh! the horror of that moment! I shall never forget it. There was
nothing to be done, no means of escape; for the walls of white water had
seemed to leap at us out of the darkness so suddenly that they were no
sooner seen than we were upon them; and the only choice left us was
whether we would plunge into them stem-on, or be hove in among them
broadside-on, as had been the case of the str