Harcourt listened with a species of admiration to the calm and measured sentiment of the sailor, who, fully conscious of all the danger, yet never, by a word or gesture, showed that he was flurried or excited.
“You have been out on nights as bad as this, I suppose?” said Harcourt.
“Maybe not quite, sir, for it's a great say is runnin'; and, with the wind off shore, we could n't have this, if there was n't a storm blowing farther out.”
“From the westward, you mean?”
“Yes, sir,—a wind coming over the whole ocean, that will soon meet the land wind.”
“And does that often happen?”
The words were but out, when, with a loud report like a cannon-shot, the wind reversed the sail, snapping the strong sprit in two, and bringing down the whole canvas clattering into the boat. With the aid of a hatchet, the sailor struck off the broken portion of the spar, and soon cleared the wreck, while the boat, now reduced to a mere foresail, labored heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at every bound. Her course, too, was now altered, and she flew along parallel to the shore, the great cliffs looming through the darkness, and seeming as if close to them.
“The boy!—the boy!” cried Harcourt; “what has become of him? He never could have lived through that squall.”
“If the spar stood, there was an end of us, too,” said the sailor; “she'd have gone down by the stern, as sure as my name is Peter.”
“It is all over by this time,” muttered Harcourt, sorrowfully.