, the wind appeared to be increasing in violence with
every fathom that we sped to leeward. True, the sky was clear away to
windward and overhead, which was a good sign; but then I had before now
known it to blow heavily for many hours on end out of a perfectly clear
sky; while away to leeward, somewhere down in the thick blackness toward
which the barque's bows were pointing, and in the direction toward which
she was hurrying, lay the land--a rock-bound coast, for aught that I
knew to the contrary, but, at all events, _land_--to touch which, under
the circumstances, would certainly mean the loss of the ship, and, most
probably, of all hands as well.

While I was meditating upon this, and debating within myself the
possibility of bringing the ship to the wind without losing the masts, a
cry arose forward--a shout of horror raised by many voices, as it seemed
to me, but if any words were uttered I failed to catch them, so terrific
was the uproar of the wind in the maze of rigging overhead. I sprang
toward the break of the poop, crying out at the same time to know what
was the matter, when, as I did so, I caught a glimpse of a darker shadow
against the blackness of the sky ahead, lying right athwart our hawse;
there was another cry from our forecastle; and as I turned my head to
shout an order to the helmsman to put the wheel hard over I felt a
shock--not a very severe one by any means, but as though we had touched
the ground for a moment--a loud scream uprose out of the dark shadow
beneath our bows, and a grating, grinding sensation thrilled along the
whole ship from her bows to her stern-post, as though she were forcing
her way over something solid. I sprang to the rail and looked over the
side into the water; and there, sliding swiftly past the ship, and prone
upon the glittering, phosphorescent, milk-white foam, lay distinctly
limned the black outline of a mast with a long, tapering latteen yard
and a strand or two of rigging attached to it; while here and there,
dotted upon the hissing froth, I caught a momentary vision of certain
round black objects that I knew were the heads of drowning men,
intermingled with fragments of wreckage, tossing arms, and writhing
bodies.

Even as I gazed, horror-stricken, at this picture of sudden, swift
destruction, it drifted astern and was quickly lost to view; but I had
seen enough to know exactly what had happened. We had unwittingly run
down one of the proas that had essayed