I know it involved an impossibility of turning in without subjecting yourself to a hydropathic remedy of violent nature, by going to bed in wet blankets, and of getting anything for breakfast besides wet biscuit and cold tea.

Let it go; something went wrong, and the consequences were these.
A wall of water, looming high above her mainyard, came rushing and booming along, dark, terrible, opaque.

For a moment I saw it curling overhead, and would have cried out, I believe, had there been time; but a midshipman, a mere child, slipped up before me, and caught hold of my legs, while I tried to catch his collar.

Then I heard the skipper roar out, in that hoarse throaty voice that seamen use when excited.

"Hold on, the sea's aboard," and then a stunning, blinding rush of water buried us altogether.