“God help the boats!  It’s no gale!  It’s a typhoon!” the sailing-master shouted to Chris at eleven o’clock.  “Too much canvas!  Got to get two more reefs into the mainsail, and got to do it right away!” He glanced at the old captain, shivering in oilskins at the binnacle and holding on for dear life.  “There’s only you and I, Chris—­and the cook; but he’s next to worthless!”

In order to make the reef, it was necessary to lower the mainsail, and the removal of this after pressure was bound to make the schooner fall off before the wind and sea because of the forward pressure of the jib.

“Take the wheel!” the sailing-master directed.  “And when I give the word, hard up with it!  And when she’s square before it, steady her!  And keep her there!  We’ll heave to again as soon as I get the reefs in!”

Gripping the kicking spokes, Chris watched him and the reluctant cook go forward into the howling darkness.  The Sophie Sutherland was plunging into the huge head-seas and wallowing tremendously, the tense steel stays and taut rigging humming like harp-strings to the wind.  A buffeted cry came to his ears, and he felt the schooner’s bow paying off of its own accord.  The mainsail was down!

He ran the wheel hard-over and kept anxious track of the changing direction of the wind on his face and of the heave of the vessel.  This was the crucial moment.  In performing the evolution she would have to pass broadside to the surge before she could get before it.  The wind was blowing directly on his right cheek, when he felt the Sophie Sutherland lean over and begin to rise toward the sky—­up—­up—­an infinite distance!  Would she clear the crest of the gigantic wave?

Again by the feel of it, for he could see nothing, he knew that a wall of water was rearing and curving far above him along the whole weather side.  There was an instant’s calm as the liquid wall intervened and shut off the wind.  The schooner righted, and for that instant seemed at perfect rest.  Then she rolled to meet the descending rush.

Chris shouted to the captain to hold tight, and prepared himself for the shock.  But the man did not live who could face it.  An ocean of water smote Chris’s back and his clutch on the spokes was loosened as if it were a baby’s.  Stunned, powerless, like a straw on the face of a torrent, he was swept onward he knew not whither.  Missing the corner of the cabin, he was dashed forward along the poop runway a hundred feet or more, striking violently against the foot of the foremast.  A second wave, crushing inboard, hurled him back the way he had come, and left him half-drowned where the poop steps should have been.

Bruised and bleeding, dimly conscious, he felt for the rail and dragged himself to his feet.  Unless something could be done, he knew the last moment had come.  As he faced the poop, the wind drove into his mouth with suffocating force.  This brought him back to his senses with a start.  The wind was blowing from dead aft!  The schooner was out of the trough and before it!  But the send of the sea was bound to breach her to again.  Crawling up the runway, he managed to get to the wheel just in time to prevent this.  The binnacle light was still burning.  They were safe!