The skipper had sprung from his bunk when the roar had awakened him, and stood looking at us in dismay as we tumbled below. In an instant I felt the schooner rise as, with a deafening, smothering crash, the surge struck and passed over her. She seemed to mount into the air and fly through space for nearly a minute. I found myself lying on the port side with my feet against the deck-beams and my hands stretched out against the cabin floor. The next instant she righted with a jerk and I found myself lying on top of Garnett in the middle of the cabin. The water poured through the crack of the hatchway and down the skylight, so for an instant I supposed we were at the bottom of the sea. Garnett, however, flung me aside and started for the deck.
The schooner made a few sharp rolls and then partly steadied herself on an even keel as the mate slid back the hatch-slide. Instead of tons of water pouring down upon us, as we looked up we caught a glimpse of the full moon in a clear sky, and I don’t remember anything that looked half so beautiful as it did to me at that moment.
We scrambled on deck and looked about us. There, a quarter of a mile away to the northward, lay Clipperton Reef, quiet and peaceful on the bosom of the calm Pacific Ocean. Not a thing was left, save a few streaks in the moonlit water which looked like tide-rips, to show that any disturbance had taken place.
As for the schooner, our bowsprit and foretop-mast were missing, and the main-boom was broken at the saddle, but our lower masts were all right. The bits forward were torn completely out of her with the surge on the anchors, and her decks were swept perfectly clean, but when we sounded the well and found only two feet of water in the hold we knew we were safe. She had gone over the reef on the crest of the tidal wave and had not even touched it. Whether we went through the cut or not it was impossible to tell.
The boat was gone, so we could not go ashore again even if we wanted to, but the professor was the only one who showed the slightest inclination in this respect, and after we assured him of the loss of his specimens he showed even less than the rest of us.
The skipper stayed on deck during the remainder of the night while we worked the schooner away from the breakers. As there was no wind we had to do this by means of a drag, which one man carried forward and dropped overboard, while the rest of us tailed on to the rope which led through a block on her quarter. By midnight we were out of all danger, and, after putting the foresail on her, we divided into our regular watches again.
The next morning we went to work to repair damages, and by noon we had all the lower sails set. A light air drifted us slowly to the westward, and before night we saw the reef for the last time.
We had nearly a hundred valuable specimens in the hold, and, considering our bad luck, we were not entirely unsuccessful. Frisbow fretted a good deal about his whale, but when we struck the trade-wind his spirits rose so high at the prospect of being home again in a few weeks that even this loss was forgotten.
The skipper and Garnett got along together splendidly, and there was less swearing done on board during the run home than probably ever before among five sailors afloat. The only great inconvenience was the loss of our galley, which caused us to have to cook in the cabin and eat with the forecastle mess things.
On the sixty-first day out we sighted the Farralone Islands, and that night we were ashore in San Francisco.