This furious wind had cleared the horizon, and the water-line all around was distinctly figured against the sky. The sea was a sheet of foam, and, what will scarcely seem credible, the swell _subsided_ under the lateral pressure of the wind, so that for a short time we seemed to be racing along a level surface of froth. Large masses of this froth, bubbly and crackling like wood in a fire, were jogged clean off the water and struck the decks or sides of the ship with reports like the discharge of a pistol, and no more than a handful of water blown against my face hit me with such force, that for some moments I suffered the greatest torment, as though my eyes had been scalded, and I hardly knew whether I had not lost my sight.
The wind was blowing true from the south and we were bowling before it due north, losing as much ground every five minutes as had taken us an hour to get during the day. Coxon, however, was _feeling_ the gale before he brought the ship close: at any moment, you see, the wind might chop round and blow a hurricane; though, to be sure, the sky with its torn masses of skurrying clouds had too wild an aspect to make us believe that this gale was likely to be of short duration.
The sea now began to rise, and it was strange to watch it. First it boiled in short waves which the wind shattered and blew flat. But other waves rose, too solid for the wind to level: they increased in bulk as they ran, and broke in coils of spray, while fresh and larger waves succeeded, and the ship began to pitch quickly in the young sea.
The wonderful violence of the wind could not be well appreciated by us who were running before it; but when the crew manned the braces and the helm was put to starboard, it seemed as if the wind would blow the ship out of the water. She came to slowly, laying her main-deck level with the sea, and the screeching of the wind was diabolical and absolutely terrifying to listen to. With the weather leeches just lifting, she was still well away from her course, and her progress under all three topsails was all leeway.
But I soon saw that she could not carry two of the three topsails, owing to the tremendous sudden pressure put upon the masts by her lurches to windward; and sure enough Duckling (who had turned out along with all hands when the gale had first struck the ship) roared through a speaking-trumpet to clew up and furl the fore and mizzen topsails.