The night was very dark,—was it the looming storm or the furnace beneath them which made the air so oppressive and close? Nothing could be done without light, and the suspense was horrible. Every now and then the captain, holding a lantern low, swept the decks, examining to see whether the smoke had increased or lessened. There appeared to be but little difference, but such change as there was lay in the direction of increase.
Thicker and thicker grew the gloom, blacker and blacker the night, heavier and heavier the sultry air. Then a faint moaning was heard among the shrouds, a hissing on the surface of the water, and the cyclone broke upon them with a cry as of demons rejoicing over their prey.
The vessel gave a shudder like a living creature, then bounded forwards, heeling over from force of the wind in the most perilous manner; every cord straining, every sail swollen to its utmost tension.
It was but the edge of the cyclone, but even that gave them enough to do. The sea boiled around them; great waves tossed the devoted ship on their crests, and buried it in their trough, driving it onward with fury all but unmanageable.
Then rose up a wall of water above their heads, it dashed down upon the decks, and rushed out from the scuppers in foaming streams; and in the next instant the mainsail was torn from its holdings, the mast gave way with an awful rending and crash, and beat about to this side and that, to the peril of all around.
"The boats! the boats!" shrieked the men.
"Take to the boats!" shouted Rogers.
They sprang to the davits to loosen the boats, and the howling wind took the gear in its teeth and wrenched its supports from their hold, whirling the two first boats away as if they had been feathers.
Floods of water poured over the decks, making their way plentifully down into the hold through a thousand clefts opened by the straining timbers, and the steam rose in thicker and hotter clouds as they washed away.