But before the man could reach the spot for which he sprang the ship was upon me, and as her cutwater crashed into the frail hull of the boat, rending it asunder and flinging the two halves violently apart to roll bottom upward on either side of the swelling bows, I leapt desperately upward at the chain bobstay, caught it, shinned nimbly up it to the bowsprit, and made my breathless way inboard, to the terror and astonishment of some twenty forecastle hands who had evidently been startled out of a sound sleep by the sudden outcries and commotion under the bows, and into the midst of whom I unceremoniously tumbled.
