Then, when you feel that its force is spent, stick your fingers and toes into the sand, and hold on like grim death.' "Well, we drifted nearer and nearer until, just as we got to the point where the great waves tumbled over, the captain cut the lashings and swam a little away, so as to be clear of the spar.

Then a big wave came towering up.

I was carried along like a straw in a whirlpool.
Then there was a crash that pretty nigh knocked the senses out of me.
I do not know what happened afterwards.

It was a confusion of white water rushing past and over me.

Then for a moment I stopped, and at once made a clutch at the ground that I had been rolling over.