I daresay, if we had commenced to rise in the air, every man would have held on like grim death, but he wouldn't have wondered much; 'twas just, "whatever might happen to please them as had the managing of it," which was Jacob's observation when we talked of it after. Mr Snelling was the only one that ventured to pass a joke; when Jones, who I thought was out of hearing, looked at the reefer with such a fierce glance, and so scornful at the same time, that I couldn't help connecting what happened the very next moment with it--for without the slightest warning, both of us were flung to leeward, and Snelling pitched into the scuppers, as a huge rolling ridge of the white water came down upon our beam; while the schooner broached to in the wind, floundering on the swell with her sails aback. Had the breeze been stronger, I think it would have fairly swamped us with the sternway she had; and heave after heave swelled glaring and weltering out of the pale blind sky, till our decks swam with light in the dusk under the bulwarks, and about the dark mouths of the hatchways. Just as suddenly the rollers seemed to sink in the smooth of the sea, and at last we payed off with the breeze as before, at the cost of a good fright and a famous ducking. Two or three times in the course of the middle watch did this happen, except that we were taken less by surprise, and had the hatches closed, with every rope ready to let go; the breeze strengthening all the time, and the same sort of look continuing all round and aloft.[25]