'I hope you'll never see such a thing, Master Jack. When one of those "busters" come along it's only by the merest chance that anyone pulls through it with his life, or, at anyrate, with unbroken limbs.
'Well, lad, we were so beaten with wind, and knocked about by the sea, that it wasn't long before the carpenter sounded the "well," and holding up three fingers, for no one could hear a word shouted in their ear, he signalled three feet of water down below.
'Your father began to work his arms, as much as to say, "All hands to the pumps!" and we got them working fairly well.
'All of a sudden, lad, she broached to, and afore you could sing out "Belay!" a tremendous wave swept the deck, and the wind dropped. It was almost calm. From another point it burst out worse than ever, and the cross sea thus raised was something awful. None of us had seen anything like it, and as for the old barque she could make nothing of such a smother.
'One fearful big wave gripped her by the bow, and another seized the stern. When they let go she had been twisted like paper, and on her beam-ends fell into the trough of the sea.
'We left the pumps and lashed ourselves to the mizen rigging. The rudder had been carried away.
'The skipper looked pretty sad—maybe he was thinking of his family at home. Anyhow, sonny, he waved his arms, as if to say, "It's all over with us, men!" At that moment a terrible sea broke in over the port beam, swept the deck fore and aft, and stove in the main hatch.
'In the thick spume and rain no one could see much, while the salt clinging in our eyes blinded most of the men.
'It was coming on dark. The barque was lifted to the top of a great billow, and then fell nearly straight down to the bottom of the hollow, where it was almost calm.
'Then, with rush of water and scream of wind, she rose to the summit of another wave, and was instantly hurled on to a reef, over which the sea boiled a thousand times worse than out in the open. Of what next happened I have but dim recollection.