The wind still held up, however, and although we were carrying more canvas than we really ought to have had on the ship in such a gale, Captain Miles was just thinking of setting the spanker and bending a new fore-topsail, when, as if it had been all at once shut off from its source, the strong north-western wind in a moment ceased to blow. At this time there was not a single cloud on the horizon anywhere, the sky being absolutely clear and beautifully blue; but I noticed something like a white wall of water on our port bow advancing towards the _Josephine_. The sight resembled an enormous wave raised up to twenty times the height of those in our more immediate vicinity. "Look, Mr Marline!" I cried. "What is that there to the left?" He glanced where I pointed, and so did Jackson, the latter singing out the moment he caught sight of the wave to the two men at the wheel, who were Davis and a German sailor, "Down with the helm--sharp!" "Hullo! what's the matter?" exclaimed Captain Miles, hearing the order and raising himself up from the cabin skylight where he had been bending over his log-book, in which he had been jotting down an entry. "What's up now?" "Something uncommonly like a white squall, sir," hurriedly explained Jackson. "It's coming down fast on us from windward, and will be on us in a jiffey. Down with the helm sharp, don't you hear?" he called out a second time to the helmsmen. Captain Miles, quite startled now, looked round, and seeing the great wave of water, now quite close, borne before the coming wind, repeated the order to put down the helm more sharply still, adding also to the watch on duty: "Cast-off the topsail sheets and let everything go by the run!" Whether Davis heard the order to let the ship's head fall off and wilfully disobeyed it, on account of its coming from Jackson, whom he hated, or whether he was paralysed with terror at the approach of this new danger, after our having passed through all the perils of the cyclone, no one could say; but he not only did not turn the spokes of the wheel himself, but he absolutely prevented the other man from doing so. Seeing the vessel did not answer the helm, the captain and Jackson together darted aft, dragging away Davis and fiercely jamming the wheel down as hard as they could. The movement, however, came too late. Before the _Josephine's_ bows could pay off, a terrific blast of wind, worse than anything that had yet assailed her, struck her sideways. Over she was borne to leeward, dipping and dipping until her yard-arms; and then, the tops of her masts, touching the water, becoming gradually immersed as the ship canted.