We strained our eyes.
Gradually the smoke lifted. The figure was standing as before!
And as that horrid countenance came forth again in view, fixedly looking on us, their terror returned upon the mariners, now come all up on deck again. Dazed with fear, they stood huddled together, every man clinging to his mate.
Suddenly the Captain cried:
“Make sail!” But his voice was shrill and small; and, glancing to starboard, he screamed:
“Haste! haste! Make sail! Cut the cable!”
Again the mariners did his bidding. Gibbering with affright, they swarmed aloft, crowding on sails; whilst one run and hacked through the cable with his hanger.
Suddenly the glimmering light cast by the phantom went out. The figure had disappeared. A cry arose, and the men on the yards and rigging ceased from their panic work.
But only for a moment; and soon every sail was set, and every stitch of canvas got on her that our yards would spread. But there was no wind—no, not so much as to lift an ensign!
But there was a current run very swift to the southward, in a line with the shore, and the ship drove into the path of it, and began to be borne along with it. It carried us about two miles, when it took a turn, swirling gradually round to the shore. Hereupon we let go our sheet-anchor (it was the bower-cable that had been cut); but the bottom would not hold.