51�Թ�

It was impossible to face the scud and spoondrift from the furious sea; but to leeward he caught a glimpse of a marsh flooded with salt water, its reedy vegetation beaten flat by the storm.

It tears the foaming crests off half a dozen waves, and sends them swirling down to leeward in shivering sheets of snowy spoondrift.

At six bells in the morning watch the main-topsail blew out of the bolt-ropes with a report like a gun's, and went swirling away into the flying spoondrift down on our lee quarter.

She dodged occasionally to protect her eyes from the spoondrift which slatted so sharply across the deck and 156 into the cockpit.

The oil slick helped only a little; every few moments a wave with spoondrift flying from it would smash across the deck, volleying tons of water between rails, with a sound like thunder.