What happened then might have served as confirmation of mariners' superstition that a veritable demon reigns in the heart of the tempest. The attack on the old _Polly_ showed devilish intelligence in team-work. A crashing curler took advantage of the loosened deckload and smashed the schooner a longside buffet which sent all the lumber in a sliding drive against the lee rail and rigging. The mainsail had been only partly secured; the spitter blew into the flapping canvas with all its force and the sail snapped free and bellied out. The next instant the _Polly_ was tripped! She went over with all the helpless, dead-weight violence of a man who has caught his toe on a drooping clothes line in the dark. The four men who were on deck were sailors and they did not need orders when they felt that soul-sickening swing of her as she toppled. Instinctively, with one accord, they dived for the cabin companionway. Undoubtedly, as a sailor, the first thought of each was that the schooner was going on to her beam-ends. Therefore, to remain on deck meant that they would either slide into the water or that a smashing wave would carry them off. They went tumbling down together in the darkness, and all four of them, with impulse of preservation as instant and true as that of the trap-door spider, set their hands to the closing of the hatch and the folding leaves of the door. Captain Mayo, his clutch still on a knob, found himself pulled under water without understanding at first just what had happened. He let go his grip and came up to the surface, spouting. He heard the girl shriek in extremity of terror, so near him that her breath swept his face. He put out his arm and caught her while he was floundering for a footing. When he found something on which to stand and had steadied himself, he could not comprehend just what had happened; the floor he was standing on had queer irregularities. “We've gone over!” squalled Mr. Speed in the black darkness. “We've gone clear over. We're upside down. We're standing on the ceiling!” Then Mayo trod about a bit and convinced himself that the irregularities under his feet were the beams and carlines. The _Polly_ had been tripped in good earnest! Mr. Speed was right--she was squarely upside down! Even in that moment of stress Mayo could figure out how it had happened. The spitter must have ripped all her rotten canvas off her spars as she rolled and there had been no brace to hold her on her beam-ends when she went over. Captain Candage was spouting, splashing near at hand, and was bellowing his fears. Then he began to call for his daughter in piteous fashion. “Are you drownded, Polly darling?” he shouted. “I have her safe, sir,” Mayo assured him in husky tones, trying to clear the water from his throat. “Stand on a beam. You can get half of your body above water.” “It's all off with us,” gasped the master. “We're spoke for.”