There was more than luck in the matter; for I saw him, twice, at the head of a line of the men, himself next to the pin.

And twice, in this position, I saw the North Atlantic curl over the rail and fall upon them.

And each time he alone remained, holding the turn of the rope on the pin, while the rest of them were rolled and sprawled helplessly away.
Almost it seemed to me good fun, as at a circus, watching their antics.
But I did not apprehend the seriousness of the situation until, the wind screaming higher than ever and the sea a-smoke and white with wrath, two men did not get up from the deck.

One was carried away for'ard with a broken leg--it was Iare Jacobson, a dull-witted Scandinavian; and the other, Kid Twist, was carried away, unconscious, with a bleeding scalp.
In the height of the gusts, in my high position, where the seas did not break, I found myself compelled to cling tightly to the rail to escape being blown away.

My face was stung to severe pain by the high-driving spindrift, and I had a feeling that the wind was blowing the cobwebs out of my sleep-starved brain.
And all the time, slender, aristocratic, graceful in streaming oilskins, in apparent unconcern, giving no orders, effortlessly accommodating his body to the violent rolling of the _Elsinore_, Captain West strolled up and down.
It was at this stage in the gale that he unbent sufficiently to tell me that we were going through a circular storm and that the wind was boxing the compass.