The wheel went over and the men rushed to the braces, but it was too late. Hardly had the ship's head swung a point before there was a crash and a jolt that shook every man from his feet; then came another and heavier crash, and the stern lifted with a sea, swung through an irregular arc of radius equal to the ship's length, and came down with another crash that sent the wheel spinning and both helmsmen to the deck. The foremast went by the board, snapping six feet above the deck, and carrying with it the main-topgallantmast. It fell across the reef that had caught the ship, and the royal and topgallant masts and yards floated in the fairly quiet water of the lagoon within. The stern lifted again, swung farther in, and came down with a jar that shook out the main and mizzen topmasts; but these spars disintegrated as they fell, and landed close aboard or on the reef. Then came a mighty sea that swept over the dismantled wreck as over a breakwater; and the two mates, bruised and half stunned--nearly shocked out of their now limited faculties--were caught just as they stood erect, and carried with it, high over the rail, high over the barrier reef, and dropped in the swirling turmoil of yeasty water within it. The captain had struggled aft to the starboard alley on the poop, and saw them go. A following sea hit the ship and bore him back in its rush along the alley. Recovering, he again scrambled aft to where, on the house just forward of the wheel, hung a small, circular life-buoy to be thrown by the helmsman in an emergency. "Stand by!" he called. "Stand by for this life-buoy!" He could see their two shaggy heads rising out of the froth, each of them apparently uninjured, and swimming vigorously toward the reef. "Stand by!" he shouted, encouragingly, and sent the circular ring of cork and canvas whirling toward them with a round-arm throw. It fell near them, and both swam toward it, each getting a grip. The captain ran forward as he could between the sweeping seas to where his crew clustered under the weather-rail, hanging on to coils of rope and belaying pins. "Go out there, some of you!" he shouted. "Go down the foremast and throw them a line! I'll clear away the running-gear, so you can overhaul enough. Bear a hand, now, or they can't get back!" "To hell with them!" said the Orkney-Islander. "Think you, cappen, that I or any man here would go down that spar after yon two buckos?"