"Heaven's artillery that, my lad," he said solemnly. Then in a whisper, "Shake hands! I'll help you all I can, Herrick, but heaven knows how we shall be situated soon." I felt a strange sensation of awe creep over me, as he gripped my hand warmly, and then snatched his away, and sat up firm and rigid, turning his head to the east as all now became suddenly black--so dark that I could hardly see the men before me and the sail. But still we glided rapidly on over the long smooth rollers, on and on toward the islands, which lay a short distance from the mainland. "It will be all guess work," whispered Mr Brooke. "I am keeping her head as near as I can guess for the channel, but the breakers will soon be our only guide." Then came the heavy roar again, which I had taken for guns, but it did not cease as before, when it sounded like a sudden explosion. It was now continuous, and rapidly increasing. "Thunder?" I asked in a low voice. "Wind. Tremendous. It will be on us in five minutes." But even then it seemed impossible, for we were still sailing swiftly and gently along towards the channel between the islands, and the roar like distant thunder or heavy guns had once more ceased. "We shall get to the shore first after all," I whispered. "No." At that moment there was a sensation as of a hot puff of air behind us. It literally struck my head just as if a great furnace door had been opened, and the glow had shot out on to our necks. "Here she comes," growled Tom Jecks; "and good luck to us." And then, as if to carry out the idea of the opened furnace, it suddenly grew lighter--a strange, weird, wan kind of light--and on either side, and running away from us on to the land, the sea was in a wild froth as if suddenly turned to an ocean of milk. "Down with the sail!" shouted Mr Brooke, who had held on to the last moment, so as to keep the boat as long as possible under his governance; and quickly as disciplined men could obey the sail was lowered, and as far as I could see they were in the act of stowing it along the side, when it filled out with a loud report, and was snatched from their hands and gone. "Any one hurt?" "No, sir," in chorus. "Oars." I heard the rattle of the two pairs being thrust out. Next Mr Brooke's words, yelled out by my ear--"sit fast!" and then there was a heavy blow, heavy but soft and pressing, followed by the stinging on my neck as of hundreds of tiny whips, and then we were rushing along over the white sea, in the midst of a mass--I can call it nothing else--of spray, deafened, stunned, feeling as if each moment I should be torn out of my seat, and as if the boat itself were being swept along like lightning over the sea, riding, not on heavy water, but on the spray.