In fact, while the men were still toiling at the pumps we got our first real taste of it.  For up to that moment the wind had been coming in a steadily-increasing succession of scuffling gusts, each more fierce than its predecessor, first from this quarter of the compass, and then from that, with quite moderate breezes in between, mostly from a northerly direction, that sometimes moderated almost to a calm.  But now, after a somewhat longer spell than usual of the moderate breeze, the wind quite suddenly increased in force to that of a full gale, swooping down upon us in a mad scuffle that twirled the little craft about like a teetotum for a minute or two as it howled and raved around us, lashing the whole surface of the sea into one unbroken sheet of foam and spray, and then it settled down and began to blow great guns from the northward, whipping up a nasty short, choppy sea into which, within ten minutes, the little schooner was plunging to the height of her hawse-holes.