“No; she much too flighten’d to weep.”
Ransey bent low over his sister, and felt relieved when certain that she was breathing and alive, for she slept almost like one in a trance.
Ransey had long since become “sea-fast,” as sailors call it. No waves, however rough, could affect him, no ship’s motion however erratic.
But just at that moment his head suddenly swam; he felt, as he afterwards expressed it, that he was being lifted into the clouds; next moment a crash came that extinguished the light and hurled him to the deck.
For a moment he felt stunned and unable to move; and now, high above the shrieking of the storm-wind, came the sound of falling and breaking timber, and Ransey knew the ship was doomed.
Book Three—Chapter Five.
Fortifying the Encampment.
The sound was that of falling masts. A sailor of less experience than Ransey could have told that.