"We are safe now," Reuben said, exultantly. "We are to windward of them all, and shall have them well out of sight, before morning."
When day broke, indeed, the topsails of three of the Spanish ships could be seen on the horizon; but in two or three hours these sank out of sight, and the Swan was headed on her course west.
[Chapter 5]: Shipwrecked.
For six days the Swan sailed westward before a gentle wind. Then clouds were seen rising in the north, and spreading with great rapidity across the horizon.
"We are in for a tempest," Captain Reuben said. "Never have I seen the clouds rising more rapidly.
"Get her sail off her, Standing, as quickly as possible."
The crew fell to work, and in a very few minutes the Swan was stripped of the greater part of her canvas. But quickly as the men worked, the storm came up more rapidly, and the crew had but half finished their work when, with a roar and turmoil that almost bewildered them, the gale struck the vessel. Her head had been laid to the south, so that the wind should take her astern; and it was well that it was so, for had it struck her on the beam, she would assuredly have been capsized, even had not a rag of canvas been shown, for the wind would have caught her lofty forecastle and poop. As it was she plunged heavily forward, quivering as if from a blow. Then her bluff bows bore her up and, with a leap, she sprang forward and sped along before the gale.
"I have seen as sudden a squall among the Greek islands," Captain Reuben shouted in the mate's ear; "but never elsewhere. I hope that this may prove as short as do the gales in that quarter."
"I hope so," the mate replied, "for we know not how far the land may be distant."
But though the captain knew it not, they had been caught in one of those furious gales that were, afterwards, the terror of the Spaniards; blowing for a week or ten days without intermission, and being the cause of the wreck of many a stout ship. The sea got up rapidly, and the wind seemed to increase in fury as night fell, and for three days the ship ran before it. The waist was frequently deluged with water, and it required six men at the helm to keep her straight before the wind.