The wind rose, and for half an hour I kept her to it.  She had no more sail than she needed; she heeled beautifully and strongly to the wind; she took the seas, as they ran more regular, with a motion of mastery.  It was like the gesture of a horse when he bends his head back to his chest, arching his neck with pride as he springs upon our Downs at morning.  So set had the surging of the sea become that she rose and fell to it with rhythm, and the helm could be kept quite steady, and the regular splash of the rising bows and the little wisps of foam came in ceaseless exactitude like the marching of men, and in all this one mixed with the life of the sea.

But before it was eight o’clock (and I had eaten nothing) the wind got stronger still, and I was anxious and gazed continuously into it, up to windward, seeing the white caps beginning on the tops of the seas, although the wind and tide were together.  She heeled also much more, and my anxiety hardened with the wind, for the wind had strengthened by about half-past eight, so that it was very strong indeed, and she was plainly over-canvased, her lee rail under all the time and all the cordage humming; there it stood, and by the grace and mercy of God the wind increased no more, for its caprice might have been very different.

Then began that excellent game which it is so hard to play, but so good to remember, and in which all men, whether they admit it or not, are full of fear, but it is a fear so steeped in exhilaration that one would think the personal spirit of the sea was mingled with the noise of the air.

For a whole great hour she roared and lifted through it still, taking the larger seas grandly, with disdain, as she had taken the smaller, and still over the buried lee rail the stream of the sea went by rejoicing and pouring, and the sheets and the weather runner trembled with the vigour of the charge, and on she went, and on.  I was weary of the seas ahead (for each and individually they struck my soul as they came, even more strongly than they struck the bows—­steep, curling, unintermittent, rank upon rank upon rank, as innumerable cavalry); still watching them, I say, I groped round with my hand behind the cabin door and pulled out brandy and bread, and drank brandy and ate bread, still watching the seas.  And, as men are proud of their companions in danger, so I was proud to see the admirable lift and swing of that good boat, and to note how, if she slowed for a moment under the pounding, she recovered with a stride, rejoicing; and as for my fears, which were now fixed and considerable, I found this argument against them:  that, though I could see nothing round me but the sea, yet soon I should be under the lee of the Goodwins, for, though I could not exactly calculate my speed, and though in the haze beyond nothing appeared, it was certain that I was roaring very quickly towards the further shore.