"There she is on her legs again," cried the captain, exultingly. "The storm seems to have shown its roughest paw, and we'll ride it out yet. We are less a topgallant-sail and a brace of yards, my lord; but an hour's calm will make all shipshape again. But the poor fellows that are washed overboard! there's no getting them back. They are gone to their last muster," he added, with manly sympathy.
The fury of the tempest had been spent on the yacht; and though it now blew a stiff gale, it was no longer attended with any of those tremendous gusts which had characterized it at the first. The sea no longer boiled and tossed confusedly, but on every side rolled its waves in one direction to leeward; and though they broke in snowy heads, and lifted themselves in mountainous billows, the regularity of their motion indicated that the tornado had settled into a steady though violent hurricane. The clouds, although still dark and laden with wind, flew higher above the sea than before, and in the east they broke into masses, showing between white places in the sky.
"She will bear her spanker close reefed, and a hand's breadth of the jib, Mr. Howel. Pass the word forward to set the jib, sir!"
There was no reply.
"Where is Mr. Howel?" he demanded, with a foreboding of the fatal result.
"He was washed overboard by the last sea we shipped," replied one of the men.
"A noble seaman gone! a lovely woman widowed! It has been a fatal night! Marston, ho! Where is my second lieutenant?"
"Mr. Marston was struck by a spar, and knocked into the water as we went over on our beam," answered another.
"This has been a dear night indeed, my lord," said the captain, addressing Lord Bellamont, who was supporting Grace in his arms by the companion-way; "I have lost my two oldest officers, and how many of my best men I know not. Edwards! Thank God, I have one lieutenant left. You must be my second now, and act as my first! Muster all hands aft. Let us see who are missing, and then let us set to work and put the crippled craft under an inch or two of canvass, if only to ease the fore-topmast, which, with this pitching, in spite of its support, will soon take leave of the ship."
The men were mustered aft, and thirteen less than the yacht's complement answered to their names.