The catches snapped into place.
"Right!" bellowed Hickey, placing his lips close to the side of the muzzle of the gun.
"Come, let's get out of here," called Dan.
"Look out for yourself. Duck! Grab!" roared Sam.
"Wha—what——"
Dan did not complete the sentence. A wall of water struck the turret with a report like that of the three-inch forward rifles.
From the depths of the great green wave came a muffled yell. Sam Hickey's grip had been wrenched loose from the guard rope at the side of the muzzle of the seven-inch.
At the same instant both lads felt themselves lifted from their feet.
Then down, down they dropped. It seemed to them that hours were consumed in that terrible drop. They felt themselves falling into an abyss of the sea. Such was not the case, however, though their situation was, at that instant, every bit as serious as if they had in reality been falling into the sea. As it was, they were being swept toward it.
The smash of the wave having carried them from their feet, rolled them along the upper or spar deck, dropping them down some twenty feet to the quarter-deck, that was all awash. Fortunately the water below caught them, or they might have been killed in the twenty-foot fall to the quarter-deck.