Читать книгу Dick Rodney; or, The Adventures of an Eton Boy онлайн

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The spray flew over me, thick as rain, but bitter, heavy, and blinding.

How long I could have survived, I know not; but I felt as one in a dreadful dream, and acted with the decision and firmness with which we often seem to acquit ourselves amid the most fantastic situations created by the fancy in sleep.

Suddenly, amid the stupor that was coming over me, I heard a voice and saw a large brig looming between me and the pale waning moon. She was close by, with her courses, topsails, jib, and fore-and-aft mainsail set, but with her foreyard laid to the wind as she lay to. Then I heard the rattle of the blocks and tackle, as a boat descended from the stem davits with a splash into the sea.

"Cheerily, now, my lads, give way!" cried the voice I had heard before; "pull to windward round this craft, and overhaul her."

"There's a man in the fore-rigging!" cried another.

"Then stand by in the bow with the boat-hook."

I strove to speak, to shout; but my voice was gone.

"Spring into the sea," cried a voice; "do you hear me, you sir—you in the fore-rigging there? Jump in; we cannot sheer alongside a craft that pitches about like a cork in such a sea as this."