Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea through which we were running, I doubted that there was a boat afloat.

It did not seem possible that such frail craft could survive such stress of wind and water.
I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running with it; but from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside the _Ghost_ and apart from her, and saw the shape of her outlined sharply against the foaming sea as she tore along instinct with life.

Sometimes she would lift and send across some great wave, burying her starboard-rail from view, and covering her deck to the hatches with the boiling ocean.

At such moments, starting from a windward roll, I would go flying through the air with dizzying swiftness, as though I clung to the end of a huge, inverted pendulum, the arc of which, between the greater rolls, must have been seventy feet or more.

Once, the terror of this giddy sweep overpowered me, and for a while I clung on, hand and foot, weak and trembling, unable to search the sea for the missing boats or to behold aught of the sea but that which roared beneath and strove to overwhelm the _Ghost_.
But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied me, and in my quest for them I forgot myself.