Looking astern, the boys saw the huge seas rushing after them, each one threatening to engulf the craft and send her to the bottom; and indeed that would speedily have been her fate had the men not been able to set the small rag of sail, and thus made it possible for her to keep ahead of the waves. The foaming crests of the sea were ablaze with phosphorescence, and appeared to tower above the poop as high as the main-topsail-yard, and the sight of them sweeping along after the ship was positively appalling. The wind now began to increase in violence, literally tearing off the summits of the huge waves and sending them in spindrift hurtling across the deck like showers of shot that cut the face like the lash of a whip. The uproar was terrific, the shrieking and howling of the wind blending with the creaking and straining of the timbers of the labouring ship. Crash succeeded crash aloft, but they could distinguish nothing of what was happening because of the intense blackness. Yet the motion of the ship was becoming steadier, for the reason that the wind was so strong that it was actually beating down the sea. Suddenly the two lads heard a rending and tearing sound, followed by a crash quite close to them, as something weighty smote the deck; and through the fearful din that raged round them there rang out the scream of a man in agony. "Harry," said Roger, "that is the mizzenmast come down, and it has injured some poor fellow! Let us endeavour to reach him if we can." And, still holding to each other, they began to feel their way carefully along the deck, which was now encumbered with wreckage. Suddenly Harry cried out, and fell over something, which proved to be the wreck of the fallen mast. "Are you hurt, Harry?" queried Roger. "No, lad," came the response, "and I think I have found the poor fellow whose scream we heard just now; he seems to have been crushed by the mast as it fell. If you will stoop down here, you will be able to feel his body. Had we but a lever of some kind we might perhaps be able to raise the mast sufficiently to drag him from underneath it." Roger climbed over the mast and, feeling for Harry, knelt down beside him, where he found the body that Harry had fallen upon when he tripped over the mast. By touch he found that the poor seaman, whoever he was, was pinned down immovably to the deck, the mast lying right across the middle of his body. Roger put his mouth to the ear of the man, and shouted: "Are you badly hurt; and can you move with assistance?" He caught the reply: "Is that you, Master Trevose? I am pinned down by this spar, and I believe my leg is broken; but if you could manage to get the mast raised by ever so little, I believe I could scramble out from under it." "Can we find a lever anywhere?" shouted Roger. "There are a couple of handspikes in the rack close to you; if you can find these, they will do," replied the wounded seaman.