Our present situation was a further exemplification of this great truth, if indeed such were needed; for there was no sign whatever of any abatement of the strength of the gale; indeed, contrary to all my previous experience, the wind appeared to be increasing in violence with every fathom that we sped to leeward. True, the sky was clear away to windward and overhead, which was a good sign; but then I had before now known it to blow heavily for many hours on end out of a perfectly clear sky; while away to leeward, somewhere down in the thick blackness toward which the barque's bows were pointing, and in the direction toward which she was hurrying, lay the land--a rock-bound coast, for aught that I knew to the contrary, but, at all events, _land_--to touch which, under the circumstances, would certainly mean the loss of the ship, and, most probably, of all hands as well. While I was meditating upon this, and debating within myself the possibility of bringing the ship to the wind without losing the masts, a cry arose forward--a shout of horror raised by many voices, as it seemed to me, but if any words were uttered I failed to catch them, so terrific was the uproar of the wind in the maze of rigging overhead. I sprang toward the break of the poop, crying out at the same time to know what was the matter, when, as I did so, I caught a glimpse of a darker shadow against the blackness of the sky ahead, lying right athwart our hawse; there was another cry from our forecastle; and as I turned my head to shout an order to the helmsman to put the wheel hard over I felt a shock--not a very severe one by any means, but as though we had touched the ground for a moment--a loud scream uprose out of the dark shadow beneath our bows, and a grating, grinding sensation thrilled along the whole ship from her bows to her stern-post, as though she were forcing her way over something solid. I sprang to the rail and looked over the side into the water; and there, sliding swiftly past the ship, and prone upon the glittering, phosphorescent, milk-white foam, lay distinctly limned the black outline of a mast with a long, tapering latteen yard and a strand or two of rigging attached to it; while here and there, dotted upon the hissing froth, I caught a momentary vision of certain round black objects that I knew were the heads of drowning men, intermingled with fragments of wreckage, tossing arms, and writhing bodies. Even as I gazed, horror-stricken, at this picture of sudden, swift destruction, it drifted astern and was quickly lost to view; but I had seen enough to know exactly what had happened. We had unwittingly run down one of the proas that had essayed to attack us. CHAPTER TEN. ON A LEE-SHORE.