“Five minutes after we too entered this maelstrom chasm, and, though the helm was hove hard up, and the after-sails shivered, yet, before the ‘Scourge’s’ bows, going at the rate she was, could turn the sharp angle of that water-gate, her port bilge grated against a coral ledge, and grooved and broomed the planks and copper away like so much sea-weed! But yet that slight graze never stopped us a hair’s weight, and, with additional sail, we rushed after our pilot, 219 mile after mile, through reef, ledge, breakers, inlets, and keys, now braced sharp up, and again going free, until at last the fellow, having run us a dance of full ten miles, once more emerged into the open water, close jammed on the wind, steering nearly due east.
“There, Hardy!” exclaimed the commodore, “I am tired of talking; suppose you take up the thread of the yarn. Domino, another bottle of tinta!”
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE WRECK OF THE “CENTIPEDE.”
|
“Gun bellows forth to gun, and pain Rings out her wild, delirious scream; Redoubling thunders shake the main, Loud crashing falls the shot-rent beam. The timbers with the broadsides strain; The slippery decks send up a steam From hot and living blood; and high And shrill is heard the death-pang cry!” “She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool; But the cruel rocks they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull.” |
Piron turned his gaze toward the first lieutenant, moved away the full glasses of wine, which he had never raised to his lips since the commodore began, and, resting his bloodless cheek on his other hand, listened.
“It’s vera interesting indeed.” “Tear an’ ages, boy! Fire away!” quoth the Scotchman and his Milesian crony in a breath.
Hardy threw his arm over the shoulder of Harry Darcantel as if it was a pleasant Corinthian column to lean upon, and breaking off the ashes of his cigar on the rim of a wine-glass which he had specially devoted to that purpose, he forthwith began:
“I am quite confident, gentlemen, that I can not describe what afterward took place so well as Commodore Cleveland, but, at all events, I’ll do my best. Nor do I remember very distinctly the events of the night after we got out of the Musketeers Keys; for I was pretty well fagged out myself, and all of us who had the watch below turned in to take the first wink of sleep we could catch for forty hours.