“Durn my boots!” ejaculated the American once; “but if them air sheep hadn’t gone overboard to feed the fishes, I guess we’d hev hed capers enuff goin’ on down har to sarve for sass to the biled mutton!”
All put up, however, with these petty annoyances gleefully enough, only too glad to be able to joke and make capital out of them and pleased that their present calamities were not too serious for laughter; and when they separated at bedtime, it was with the cheerful wish that the weather might be a trifle brighter on the morrow. No one seemed to think for a moment of danger, or took heed of the bustle on deck, or of the quivering and shaking of everything in the saloon, which seemed suffering from what Mr Lathrope styled a “seaquake”—in contradistinction to earthquake.
But, hardly had six bells been struck in the first watch when the order “out lights” was given and the welcome gleam of the cuddy lamp disappeared summarily, plunging all in darkness—than a sudden stupendous shock assailed the ship startling the sleepers.
There came first a stunning blow, apparently from a wave, right amidships; and then, the vessel seemed to go down to the very water’s edge on one side, heeling over as rapidly immediately afterwards to the other.
Away went everything that was movable below, flung backwards and then forwards right across the ship—the thumping noise made by the heavy boxes falling in the cabins and state-rooms, combined with the crashing and smashing of glass and crockeryware in the cuddy, where the table and settle-seats had been carried away by the run, and the outcry of the sailors yelling and stamping above, not to speak of the grinding and groaning of the bulkheads and shuddering of the ship’s timbers between decks, all making up a babel of sound and confusion that was worse by a thousand fold than what had previously occurred during the first storm which the vessel, experienced in the Bay of Biscay.
Naturally, the majority of those below thought that all was over, and piercing cries of terror and appeal for help resounded through the ship.