Without another word he went forward, and I followed him. We had to pause often to preserve ourselves from being floated off our feet. The flood, which washed white betwixt the rails, lifted the rigging off the pins, and sent the ropes snaking about the decks, and our movements were as much hampered as though we fought our way through a jungle. The foam all about us, outside and inboards, put a wild, cold glimmer into the air, which enabled us to distinguish outlines. In fact, at moments the whole shape of the barque, from her bulwarks to some distance up her masts, would show like a sketch in ink upon white paper as she leaned off the slant of the sea and painted her figure upon the hill of froth thundering away from her on the lee-side. My companion paused for a moment or two under the shelter of the caboose or galley, to tell me what he meant to do. We then crawled on to the forecastle, and he bade me hold by a rope which he put into my hand, and await his return. I watched him creep into the 'eyes' of the vessel and get upon the bowsprit, but after that I lost sight of him, for the seas smoked so fiercely all about the ship's head--to every plunge of her bows there rose so shrouding a thickness of foam--that the air was a fog of crystals where the lad was, and had he gone overboard he could not have vanished more utterly from my sight. Indeed, I could not tell whether he was gone or not, and a feeling of horror possessed me when I thought of being left alone in the vessel with a sick and useless man lying somewhere aft, and with the rage and darkness of the dreadful storm around me, the chance of striking upon Hurricane Point, and no better hope at the best than what was to be got out of thinking of the midnight breast of the storming Atlantic. After a few minutes there was the noise of the rattling of canvas resembling a volley of small shot fired off the bows. The figure of the lad came from the bowsprit out of a burst of spray that soared in steam into the wind. 'Only a fragment must be hoisted!' he exclaimed with his mouth at my ear. 'Pull with me!' I put my weight upon the rope, and together we rose a few feet of the sail upon the stay--it was the foretopmast staysail, as I afterwards discovered. 'Enough!' cried my companion in his clear, penetrating voice; 'if it will but hold till the vessel pays off, all will be well. We dare not ask for more.'