Stuff got swept overboard. We held like grim death. The ship plunged and reared like a mad horse as we were hurled from side to side, and the deck took every imaginable angle. But Nicholson somehow managed to keep her nose to it. Something snapped, and there was a wild beating and creaking. The next moment the repair party, headed by Captain Wells, all on life-lines, got to work, and one or two who fell off were fished back. Then the propeller went, and a violent controversy was waged between Parsnip and Bamptarius on the matter. But a new one was fitted by Bamptarius with extraordinary skill and daring. It was just in time. The ship was bearing round, and once beam on she would have gone smash. I remember looking astern the while and seeing the dinghy playing high jinks and whizzing like a ball. Then came the hail and lightning that played over the steel ribs in an awful fashion. Something else gave on top, and there was a wild fluttering of canvas. "Hold tight," yelled Tipton. It happened the second time, and this time much worse. A man astride of a bullet couldn't have gone up faster than we did. Something to do with exploding a gas charge--a secret stunt of Tipton's own. We found ourselves gliding along smoothly and evenly with incredible swiftness, possibly doing eighty knots. The relief from the storm-tossing to the thrill of racing smoothly was wonderful. Have you ever while yachting beaten up in the teeth of a heavy gale round a headland and had the sea sweeping over you and the boat dancing and leaping like a mad thing, and then suddenly found yourself gliding down a smooth channel with the wind behind you? Then you will know what this was. "Why on earth did not you do it before?" we all demanded. Tipton laughed. "To lend colour to our enterprise, of course, and then we have now left one emergency charge only." Our first thought was to have the dinghy alongside and rescue Sir Pompous. We found him very white. "Thank God you are alive," we said. "Seems so!" he answered sarcastically, a favourite phrase of his. "Fearful time, wasn't it?" "No. I liked it, of course." With that King Arthur clapped him on the shoulder and poured half a bottle of mastik down his throat and shirt. Sir Lancelot gingerly climbed along the ladder with a reviver for Lieutenant Wully, expecting to see that officer in a faint, instead of which he was quite cheery with an empty bottle of mastik protruding from his pocket. "How the devil did you stick on?" "Stick on? Oh, eashy!" "What's this?" asked Le Fumeur, producing the empty mastik bottle from the pocket of our Intelligence Officer. "Ohsh, thaths noshing. Nerve resthorah. Keep oush cold, verish draftish ere. Donst shay anyshing to boysh. Don't wansh go dingsh." Sir Lancelot helped him down, and he slept. IV. LOST.