“Be quiet!  Be quiet!” I whispered, intensely.  “THEY’LL hear us!”

At my touch and whisper, he struggled to become silent; and then, overhead, I saw the six yards being swiftly mast-headed.  Scarcely were the sails set, when I heard the swish and flick of gaskets being cast adrift on the lower yards, and realised that ghostly things were at work there.

For a moment or so there was silence, and I made my way cautiously to the after end of the house, and peered over.  Yet, because of the mist, I could see nothing.  Then, abruptly, from behind me, came a single wail of sudden pain and terror from Tammy.  It ended instantly in a sort of choke.  I stood up in the mist and ran back to where I had left the kid; but he had gone.  I stood dazed.  I felt like shrieking out loud.  Above me I heard the flaps of the course being tumbled off the yards.  Down upon the decks, there were the noises of a multitude working in a weird, inhuman silence.  Then came the squeal and rattle of blocks and braces aloft.  They were squaring the yards.

I remained standing.  I watched the yards squared, and then I saw the sails fill suddenly.  An instant later, the deck of the house upon which I stood, became canted forrard.  The slope increased, so that I could scarcely stand, and I grabbed at one of the wire-winches.  I wondered, in a stunned sort of way, what was happening.  Almost directly afterwards, from the deck on the port side of the house, there came a sudden, loud, human scream; and immediately, from different parts of the decks, there rose, afresh, some most horrible shouts of agony from odd men.  This grew into an intense screaming that shook my heart up; and there came again a noise of desperate, brief fighting.  Then a breath of cold wind seemed to play in the mist, and I could see down the slope of the deck.  I looked below me, towards the bows.  The jibboom was plunged right into the water, and, as I stared, the bows disappeared into the sea.  The deck of the house became a wall to me, and I was swinging from the winch, which was now above my head.  I watched the ocean lap over the edge of the fo’cas’le head, and rush down on to the maindeck, roaring into the empty fo’cas’le.  And still all around me came crying of the lost sailor-men.  I heard something strike the corner of the house above me, with a dull thud, and then I saw Plummer plunge down into the flood beneath.  I remembered that he had been at the wheel.  The next instant, the water had leapt to my feet; there came a drear chorus of bubbling screams, a roar of waters, and I was going swiftly down into the darkness.  I let go of the winch, and struck out madly, trying to hold my breath.  There was a loud singing in my ears.  It grew louder.  I opened my mouth.  I felt I was dying.  And then, thank God!  I was at the surface, breathing.  For the moment, I was blinded with the water, and my agony of breathlessness.  Then, growing easier, I brushed the water from my eyes and so, not three hundred yards away, I made out a large ship, floating almost motionless.  At first, I could scarcely believe I saw aright.  Then, as I realised that indeed there was yet a chance of living, I started to swim towards you.