While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the _Ghost_ slowly paid off.
This time, as we went into the trough of the sea and were swept, there were no sails to carry away.

And, halfway to the crosstrees and flattened against the rigging by the full force of the wind so that it would have been impossible for me to have fallen, the _Ghost_ almost on her beam-ends and the masts parallel with the water, I looked, not down, but at almost right angles from the perpendicular, to the deck of the _Ghost_.

But I saw, not the deck, but where the deck should have been, for it was buried beneath a wild tumbling of water.

Out of this water I could see the two masts rising, and that was all.

The _Ghost_, for the moment, was buried beneath the sea.