"Out there, dead to wind'ard of us, and about four mile away," answered Simpson.  "Better take in the to'garns'l, hadn't we, sir?" he continued, cocking his eye aloft to where in the dim light the spar could be faintly seen whipping and buckling like a fishing rod at every mad plunge and heave of the sorely-overdriven little vessel.  That she was being overdriven was perfectly evident, not only from the tremendous quantity of water that she was shipping forward at every furious dive into the head-sea, but from the steep angle of her decks, which sloped at an inclination of fully forty-five degrees with every lee roll, and from the cataracts of green water that poured in over her lee rail upon every such occasion; her decks, indeed, to leeward were so flooded that no man could have passed along them to leeward without imminent risk of being washed overboard.