A heavy sea got up under a scourging wind, that rose and rose, till the Agra, under the pressure of that single sail treble reefed, heeled over so as to dip her lee channels. This went on till the waves rolled so high, and the squalls were so bitter, that sheets of water were actually torn off their crests and launched incessantly on deck, not only drenching Dodd and his officers, which they did not mind, but threatening to flood the ship.
Dodd battened down the hatches and stopped that game.
Then came a danger no skill could avert: the ship lurched so violently now, as not merely to clip, but bury, her lower deck port-pendents: and so a good deal of water found ingress through the windage. Then Dodd set a gang to the pumps: for, he said, “We can hardly hope to weather this out without shipping a sea: and I won't have water coming in upon water.”
And now the wind, raging and roaring like discharges of artillery, and not like wind as known in our seas, seemed to have put out all the lights of heaven. The sky was inky black, and quite close to their heads: and the wind still increasing, the vessel came down to her extreme bearings, and it was plain she would soon be on her beam ends. Sharpe and Dodd met, and holding on by the life-lines, applied their speaking trumpets tight to each other's ears; and even then they had to bawl.
“She can't carry a rag much longer.”
“No, sir; not half an hour.”
“Can we furl that main taupsle?”
Sharpe shook his head. “The first moment we start a sheet, the sail will whip the mast out of her.”
“You are right Well, then, I'll cut it away.”
“Volunteers, sir?”