But it scarcely bettered our fortune. A short time before dusk, while we wallowed heavily in the long furrows, my poor palfrey was thrown and broke her fore legs over her trestle bar, and between fear and pain screamed so loud and shrill, it chilled even my stalwart sailors. Then, later on, as we rode the frothy summit of a giant wave, our topmast snapped, and fell among us and the wild, loose ropes writhed and lashed about worse than a hundred biting serpents, and the bellowing sail, like a great bull, jerked and strained for a moment so that I thought that it would unstep the mast itself, and then went all to tatters with a hollow boom, while we, knee-deep in the swirling sea that filled our hollow, deckless ship, gentle and simple, ’prentice and knight, whipped out our knives and gave over to the hungry ocean all that riven tackle.
It was enough to make the stoutest heart beat low to ride in such a creaking, retching cockle-shell over the hill and dale of that stupendous water. Now, out of the tumble and hiss, down we would go, careering down the glassy side of a mighty green slope, the creamy white water boiling under our low-sunk bows, and there, in mid-hollow, with the tempest howling overhead, we would have for a breathing space a blessed spell of seeming calm. And then, ere we could taste that scant felicity, the reeling floor would swell beneath us, and out of the watery glen, hurtled by some unseen power, we rose again up, up to the spume and spray, to the wild shouting wind that thrilled our humming cordage and lay heavy upon us, while the gleaming turmoil through which we staggered and rushed leaped at our fleeting sides like packs of white sea-wolves, and all the heaving leaden distance of the storm lay spread in turn before us—then down again.
Hour after hour we reeled down the English coast with the wild mid-channel in fury on our left and the dim-seen ramparts of breakers at the cliff feet on our right. Then, as we went, the light began to fail us. Our weather-beaten steersman’s face, which had looked from his place by the tiller so calm and steadfast over the war of wind and sea, became troubled, and long and anxiously he scanned the endless line of surf that shut us from the many little villages and creeks we were passing.
“You see, Sir Knight,” shouted the captain to me, as, wet through, we held fast to the same rope—“’tis a question with us whether we find a shelter before the light goes down, or whether we spend a night like this out on the big waters yonder.”
“And does he,” I asked, “who pilots us know of a near harbor?”
“Ah! there is one somewhere hereabout, but with a perilous bar across the mouth, and the tide serves but poorly for getting over. If we can cross it there is a dry jacket and supper for all this evening, and if we do not, may the saints in Paradise have mercy on us!”
“Try, good fellow, try!” I shouted; “many a dangerous thing comes easier by the venturing, and I am already a laggard post!” So the word was passed for each man to stand by his place, and through the gloom and storm, the beating spray and the wild pelting rain, just as the wet evening fell, we neared the land.
We swept in from the storm, and soon there was the bar plain enough—a shining, thunderous crescent—glimmering pallid under the shadow of the land, a frantic hell of foam and breakers that heaved and broke and surged with an infernal storm-deriding tumult, and tossed the fierce white fountains of its rage mast-high into the air, and swirled and shone and crashed in the gloom, sending the white litter of its turmoil in broad ghostly sheets far into that black still water we could make out beyond under the veil of spume and foam hanging above that boiling caldron. Straight to it we went through the cold, fierce wind, with the howl of the black night behind us, and the thunder of that shine before. We came to the bar, and I saw the white light on the strained brave faces of my silent friends. I looked aft, and there was the helmsman calm and strong, unflinchingly eyeing the infernal belt before us. I saw all this in a scanty second, and then the white hell was under our bows and towering high above our stern a mighty crested, foam-seamed breaker. With the speed of a javelin thrown by a strong hand, we rushed into the wrack; one blinding moment of fury and turmoil, and then I felt the vessel stagger as she touched the sand; the next instant her sides went all to splinters under my very feet, and the great wave burst over us and rushed thundering on in conscious strength, and not two planks of that ill-fated ship, it seemed, were still together.
Over and over through the swirl and hum I was swept, the dying cries of my ship-fares sounding in my ears like the wail of disembodied spirits—now, for a moment, I was high in the spume and ruck, gasping and striking out as even he who likes his life the least will gasp in like case, and then, with thunderous power, the big wave hurled me down into the depth, down, down, into the inky darkness with all the noises of Inferno in my ears, and the great churning waters pressing on me till the honest air seemed leagues above, and my strained, bursting chest was dying for a gasp. Then again, the hideous, playful waters would tear asunder and toss me high into the keen, strong air, with the yellow stars dancing above, and the long line of the black coast before my salt tear-filled eyes, and propped me up just so long as I might get half a gasping sigh, and hear the storm beating wildly on the farther side of the bar; then the mocking sea would laugh in savage frolic, and down again. Gods! right into the abyss of the nether turmoil, fathoms deep, like a strand of worthless sea-wrack, scouring over the yellow sand-beds where never living man went before, all in the cruel fingers of the icy midnight sea, was I tossed here and there.
And when I did not die, when the savage sea, like a great beast of prey, let me live by gasps to spread its enjoyment the more, and tossed and teased me, and shouted so hideous in my ears and weighed me down—why, the last spark of spirit in me burnt up on a sudden, fierce and angry. I set my teeth and struck out hard and strong. Ah! and the sea grew somewhat sleek when I grew resolute, and, after some minutes of this new struggle, rolled more gently and buried me less deep each time in its black foam-ribbed vortex, and, presently, in half an hour perhaps, the thunder of the bar was all behind me instead of round about, the stars were steadier in their places, the dim barrier of the land frowned through the rain direct above, and a few minutes more, wondrous spent and weary, the black water flowing in at my low and swollen lips with every stroke, yet strong in heart and hopeful, I found myself floating up a narrow estuary on a dim, foam-flecked but peaceful tide.