THE ROARING FORTIES 113 



and another on the try-works as a lookout. One 

 day during my trick at the wheel, I was prob- 

 ably responsible for a serious accident, though it 

 might have happened with the most experienced 

 sailor at the helm. To keep the brig in the trough 

 of the seas, I was holding her on a certain point 

 of the compass, but the big waves buffeted the 

 vessel about with such violence that my task was 

 difficult. Captain Shorey was standing within 

 arm's length of me, watching the compass. A 

 sea shoved the brig's head to starboard and, as if 

 it had been lying in ambush for just such an 

 opportunity, a giant comber came curling in 

 high over the stern. It smashed me into the 

 wheel and for an instant I was buried under 

 twenty feet of crystal water that made a green 

 twilight all about us. 



Then the wave crashed down ponderously 

 upon the deck and I was standing in clear air 

 again. To my astonishment, the captain was 

 no longer beside me. I thought he had been 

 washed overboard. The wave had lifted him 

 upon its top, swept him high over the skylight 

 the entire length of the quarter-deck and dropped 



