“The Purple” was really sinking, while the crew, unaccustomed to work and to navigate, knew not how to save her.
But when the first moment of terror had passed, rage boiled up in their hearts, for those mariners still loved that ship of theirs.
All sprang up speedily, some rushed to fire cannon-balls at the winds and foaming water, others seized what each man could find near him and flogged that sea which was drowning “The Purple.”
Great was that fight of despair against the elements. But the waves had more strength than the mariners. The guns filled with water and then they were silent. Gigantic whirls seized struggling sailors and swept them out into watery chaos.
The crew decreased every minute, but they struggled on yet. Covered with water, half-blinded, concealed by a mountain of foam, they fought till they dropped in the battle.
Strength left them, but after brief rest they sprang again to the struggle.
At last their hands fell. They felt that death was approaching. Dull despair seized them. Those sailors looked at one another as if demented.
Now those same voices which had warned previously of danger were raised again, and more powerfully, so powerfully this time that the roar of the waves could not drown them.
Those voices said:
“O blind men! How can ye cannonade wind, or flog waves? Mend your vessel! Go to the hold. Work there. The ship ‘Purple’ is afloat yet.”