"Ah," he would say, "I fear, Adolph, we will never round the Cape."
* * * * *
One day the sky grew thick and dark to windward and the barometer went down and down, the mercury column sinking cup-shaped, and rapidly. Something was coming.
And something did come too, with a vengeance. Cold, bitterly cold; so cold that Adolphus had to blow on his hands at the wheel; dark, too, though it was but mid-day, and hail, which was accompanied by a storm of thunder and lightning, lay on the deck inches deep.
But the strength of the two of them could not command that wheel when the tempest began to blow and roar in earnest. Their bits of sails were soon torn into rattling rags, and they themselves, drenched and worn out, sought refuge below.
Would she founder?
They expected her to almost at any moment, but the Macbeth was heavily ballasted and broad in beam; she tumbled and rolled like a log or a dead porpoise, but staggered on or was driven on. They had managed to batten down fore and aft, and perhaps that saved her, for overcome by fatigue both slept at last, and when Kep, who was first awake, managed to get up on deck, he saw that his Flying Dutchman was sadly battered; bulwarks like sheep hurdles and yards fallen; but he saw something else that astonished him still more, for around the wreck were high rocks and cliffs, with bushes on top, and upon and among these rocks the ship was hard and fast, but on a very even keel.
It did not take him long to awaken Adolphus.
"Adolph," he shouted, as he let himself down the ladder. "Come on deck. Come at once. Here is a sight! Here is a plight!"
Adolph was quickly by his side.