Читать книгу List, Ye Landsmen!. A Romance of Incident онлайн

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On a sudden a man yelled: “For God’s sake, sir, look out!” and, lifting my eyes from the struggling figure in the bottom of the boat, I perceived the huge bows of a vessel of some three hundred or four hundred tons looming high, close aboard of us. She had canvas spread to her royal mastheads, and leaned from the breeze with the water breaking white from her stem, and in the pause that followed the loud, hoarse cry of “For God’s sake, sir, look out!” one could hear the hiss and ripple of the broken waters along her bends.

“Ship ahoy!” shouted one of the seamen.

The man in the bottom of the boat began to scream afresh, struggling and fighting like a madman, and hopelessly confusing the whole company of sailors in that supreme moment. The boat swayed as though she would capsize; the lieutenant, standing high in the stern sheets, shrieked to the starboard bow oar to “pull like hell!” others roared to the approaching ship to port her helm; but, in another minute, before anything could be done, the towering bow had struck the boat! A cry went up, and, in the beat of a pulse, I was under water with a thunder as of Niagara in my ear.