That was all he got out when the sea struck. Over went the _Celestine_--over, over--the Skipper was shot from the locker through the open door of his stateroom across the cabin. Jerry, who had been sitting by the stove, was shot into that same room ahead of the Skipper. Another, lying comfortably in his bunk to windward, was thrown clear across the cabin and into the opposite bunk on the lee side, and his bedding followed him and covered him up. Another of the crew, doubled up in the after windward bunk, was sent past the lazarette and in on top of his neighbor, who had a moment before been comfortably lying in his bunk to leeward, passing the time of day with a pleasant word and a pipe in his mouth. The bedding also followed that man. Everything loose went from the windward bunks to the lee bunks--from the whole windward side to the lee side. The vessel poised so for perhaps ten seconds, while men called one to another. “What’s it?” “Are you hurted, Joe?” “God help us--what in the divil’s this?” “What in the devil’s name--” “Man, let me up--’tis smothered I am!” Cries of surprise and cries of consternation, while through it all the _Celestine_ seemed balanced between going down for good and never coming up at all. The wall-lamp flared and then started to blaze. It looked like a possible fire to add to the rest of it, but the Skipper, like a flash, threw a smothering wet oil-jacket over it. The binnacle lamp then started, but only for a moment--suddenly went out, and then for the first time they heard the rush of the sea coming on them in the dark. “Did you think to draw the slide tight, John?” bellowed the Skipper. “Tight? ’Tis tighter than the lid of hell.” “Then somebody must’ve left the binnacle slide open--there’s men without sense to be found wherever you go--you can’t dodge them.” A short space of that, and she rolled part way back. “Up she comes,” said the Skipper--“’tisn’t in nature she won’t come--she’s got to come up soon or go down entirely.” And it did seem as if she was coming up, but the next big sea hit her--bigger than the one that had hove her down. Down inside the _Celestine_ they never quite agreed on what happened. They knew that for a moment or two they were standing on the roof of the cabin, that the red-hot cover fell off the stove and hit that same roof, that the hot coals fell out of the stove and began to sizzle among the loose bedding. They knew, too, that in the middle of it all John’s voice was heard exclaiming, “Oh, my poor wife!” and again, “O God, O God, we’re lost!” and that the Skipper said, “Hush up your caterwauling--we’re a long way from bein’ lost yet,” even while the loose bedding began to take fire and blaze up.