t her
bows, relieved of the burden, rose high in the air. She was now in the
trough between two seas, and as the one following her came sweeping up
astern with towering foam-capped crest reared high in air, it became
evident that, being pinned down as it were with so much water in the
after part of her, she would not recover herself in time, and that the
approaching sea would run right over her. I knew well enough what would
then happen, and so did the men, for at my warning cry they at once
dropped whatever they happened to have in their hands and sprang
forward. I waved to the helmsman, who up to that moment had stuck most
nobly to his perilous post, and he, understanding me, let go the wheel
and rushed past me after his shipmates. On swept the wave, the water
gathering up round the quarters of the devoted schooner until it began
to pour in over the taffrail. Nothing now could save the _Dolphin_--her
hour had come. I glanced wildly round the deck and saw, indistinctly
through the gloom, the dark blot-like crowd of men all clustered
together in the gangway, waiting to spring for the wreck of the
foremast; and as the body of the wave came roaring and foaming in over
the stern, and I felt the deck canting upward under its weight, I too
staggered up the steep incline and shouted, "Jump for your lives!" as
one of the men seized me round the waist whilst he thrust a rope into my
hand.

Another moment and the great mountain of foaming water had reached to
where we stood. I was swept irresistibly off my feet and hurled in
among the crowding men; I was jostled and dragged to and fro; and as the
sea closed over my head, ends and bights of rope wreathed and twisted
themselves about my limbs and body; I received several violent blows
from what I supposed were floating pieces of wreckage; I found myself,
all in a moment, inextricably entangled in a raffle of cordage which
tightened itself about my body until I could move neither hand nor foot;
and then there came a great singing in my ears, and I felt that I was
being dragged irresistibly downward.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE SPANISH TREASURE-SHIP.

Suddenly, with a distinct jerk, the downward dragging sensation ceased;
the gear with which I was entangled had broken adrift from the sinking
hull; and just as I was upon the point of being suffocated from my long
submersion I found myself once more upon the surface. Though scarcely
conscious, I still had sense enough