Читать книгу Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches онлайн

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At the relieving of the watch the skipper was called and informed of the change, so that upon him should rest the responsibility for “carrying on.” For the driving fragments of storm-rent cloud were low, and by their meteor speed foretold that this was but a foretaste of the tempest to follow. Planting himself in his favourite attitude on the extreme weather-quarter, the captain fixed his eyes on the upper sails with a look of supreme content, though to an inexperienced gaze they would have seemed on the point of bursting into shreds, their very stitch-holes strained to gaping a quarter-inch long. Every one of her thirty-four wings were spread and drawing, for the wind being well on the quarter, allowed of the yards being canted forward, while the ship went “steady as a church,” with a ten-degree list to port. Still the wind increased and faster drove the ship, until by daylight she was going a full sixteen knots, which, in spite of the Yankee yarns anent the James Baines, her main skysail, and her twenty-one knots, is about the maximum possible under sail. The first cheerless gleams of the new day revealed an awe-inspiring view. Far as could be seen the ocean surface was torn into snowy foam by the raging wind, for the sea had not yet time to get into the gigantic stride it would presently take in sympathy with the irresistible march of the all-compelling storm. “Fine breeze, sir,” chuckled the mate, rubbing his hands with delight. “Only hope it’ll hold,” replied the skipper, peering keenly aft into the eye of the wind. There, to a landsman, the sight was ominous, almost appalling. Dense masses of distorted nimbus came hurtling out of the deep gloom, which seemed to grow blacker and more menacing every hour. So through the howling day the big ship fled onward like a frightened thing, steady and straight as an ice-yacht over Lake Michigan, although at times an incipient sea smote her broadside, and, baffled, cast its crest aloft, where the shrieking blast caught it and whirled it in needle-like particles as high as the upper topsails.