By this time the tidal wave was close upon us.  Call that a wave!  It was one solid green wall of water, higher than Niagara Falls, stretching as far as we could see to right and left, without a break in its towering front!  It was by no means clear what we ought to do.  The moving wall showed no projections by means of which the most daring climber could hope to reach the top.  There was no ivy; there were no window-ledges.  Stay!—­there was the lightning-conductor!  No, there wasn’t any lightning-conductor.  Of course, not!

Looking despairingly upward, I made a tolerably good beginning at thinking of all the mean actions I had wrought in the flesh, when I saw projecting beyond the crest of the wave a ship’s bowsprit, with a man sitting on it, reading a newspaper!  Thank fortune, we were saved!

Falling upon our knees with tearful gratitude, we got up again and ran—­ran as fast as we could, I suspect; for now the whole fore-part of the ship bulged through the water directly above our heads, and might lose its balance any moment.  If we had only brought along our umbrellas!

I shouted to the man on the bowsprit to drop us a line.  He merely replied that his correspondence was already very onerous, and he hadn’t any pen and ink.

Then I told him I wanted to get aboard.  He said I would find one on the beach, about three leagues to the south’ard, where the “Nancy Tucker” went ashore.

At these replies I was disheartened.  It was not so much that the man withheld assistance, as that he made puns.  Presently, however, he folded his newspaper, put it carefully away in his pocket, went and got a line, and let it down to us just as we were about to give up the race.  Sam made a lunge at it, and got it—­right into his side!  For the fiend above had appended a shark-hook to the end of the line—­which was his notion of humour.  But this was no time for crimination and recrimination.  I laid hold of Sam’s legs, the end of the rope was passed about the capstan, and as soon as the men on board had had a little grog, we were hauled up.  I can assure you that it was no fine experience to go up in that way, close to the smooth vertical front of water, with the whales tumbling out all round and above us, and the sword-fishes nosing us pointedly with vulgar curiosity.

We had no sooner set foot on deck, and got Sam disengaged from the hook, than the purser stepped up with book and pencil.

“Tickets, gentlemen.”

We told him we hadn’t any tickets, and he ordered us to be set ashore in a boat.  It was represented to him that this was quite impossible under the circumstances; but he replied that he had nothing to do with circumstances—­did not know anything about circumstances.  Nothing would move him till the captain, who was a really kind-hearted man, came on deck and knocked him overboard with a spare topmast.  We were now stripped of our clothing, chafed all over with stiff brushes, rolled on our