My great-uncle snatched the clasp-knife from the belt of the helmsman, a splay-footed Easterling, whose flat, gap-toothed face had remained impassive during all the excitement since Martin's warning shout had announced the storm's approach.
"Give me that rope, Robert," he exclaimed. "I am a fool to stand talking. Here, Peter!"
He flung the Dutchman a length of it.
"Bind Mistress Moira to those ringbolts—and best knot her to yourself as well. She'll not be able to stand alone. Aid me with this fellow here, Robert. We must tie him to the wheel."
One of the clouds in advance of the storm curtain reached out over us with a crackle of lightning-bolts and spatter of rain, and our fingers flew as we secured first the helmsman and then ourselves. The voice of the tempest was become a sullen, animal roar, riven at intervals by the crash of the thunder. And the immense curtain of its front overhung the James, impenetrably sooty at the base, opaquely purple as it toppled forward. The Walrus was a specter ship to leeward, and disappeared in the gloom as I watched.
"Oh, holy Mother!" gasped Moira. "'Twill be the end of all things."
And so it seemed. The Walrus was gone. The northern coast of the island dimmed and vanished. For an instant the peak of Foremast Hill hung in the upper air. Then that, too, was blotted out. The purple twilight deepened. Rain sheeted down from clouds scarce higher than our mast-heads. A lurid glare of lightning flickered and was quenched in the sea. And the wind smote us with a mad howl of exultation, sucking up into its embrace everything that was not fastened to the deck.
The James shuddered under the blow, bearing down by the head and heeling to starboard. My great-uncle and I were pushed forward on our faces. The helmsman was doubled over the wheel. Peter bent to cover Moira, crouching above her on hands and knees.
Presently the ship righted herself; but as she neared an even keel there was a prolonged craa-aa-ack! of breaking wood, and the wounded mizzenmast went by the board, crushing a score of men in its fall and brushing as many more through the hole it stove in the starboard bulwarks.
A wail of agony pierced thinly the tumult of the storm, and the James was jarred from end to end as the big spar, with all its litter of yards and top-hamper, lunged at the hull like a trip-hammer, its dead weight dragging us broadside on into the path of the waves which followed the wind's first irresistible rush. Steep walls of water dropped on us from as high as the mainyard, thudding hollow on poop and fo'csle. Giant combers crowded so fast that we choked beneath their deluge. The waist was a lather of creamy seas that wrenched and battered at hatchcoamings and bulwarks.