"Better order the hands aloft, or some one'll get taken overboard," went on Jack quietly; "and you might hand me the end of that boom-guy."
As Jack hurriedly lashed himself to the wheel, the bosun's deep voice broke through the noise of the gale like a foghorn.
"Aloft, all hands!" he thundered. "Away aloft for your lives."
The men needed no second bidding, but raced up the ratlines, for a gigantic roller was raising its head above them to starboard as it tore down upon the Higgins.
It was a moment of terrible peril. Would they go clear of the barque? Would the huge "grey-beard" destroy them? Two heavy chances against them. Everything depended on Jack's skill, his keen eye, his strong arm, and his nerve—above all, his nerve.
The elements had taken up his wild challenge with a vengeance. He had swung the Higgins four points off her course and stood braced ready for the shock, for that terror of sailors, a pooper, was approaching at terrific speed. The bosun, half way up the mizzen rigging, yelled wildly to him. He caught something about "hanging on," but the rest was lost in the roar of the gale.
Over his shoulder he caught a quick glimpse of the approaching sea, a great wall of water, black and forbidding, which, as it raced in pursuit of the flying clipper, grew momentarily more mountainous, until, having reached the limit of its growth, it burst its whole length of summit into boiling, hissing white water, which gave it more than ever the appearance of a snow-capped ridge of solid earth.
As Jack turned his eyes resolutely away, he realised how the inhabitants of Herculaneum must have felt the moment before Vesuvius poured its molten lava upon them.
Still he stood erect, head up, without a flinch. It was a position sufficient to scare the stoutest heart, and freeze a man's brain into idiocy. Yet his nerve never failed him, whilst the watch clung aloft, shaking with sheer fright, and with wavering eyes stared wildly from the helpless barque to Jack, and from Jack to the swooping demon of a sea, which, roaring and raging in pursuit, lifted its foaming head on a level with their blanched faces.