Now, however, more and more birds showed up to starboard—fifty, a hundred, whole flocks appeared and whirled wildly, with frightened screechings, through the air. There could no longer be any doubt. Yonder, a couple of cables southward, lay the rocks. We were on the very brink of destruction.
'Hard a-port! Quick, man, quick!' I shot the words out with all my strength and pointed to port with my hand, but no one understood a word. The hurricane was at its worst and the wind whistled and howled so that it was impossible to hear an order.
Fortunately, however, Mathiesen, good seaman that he was, had already put the helm over without waiting to be told. It was our only chance of clearing the reefs.
And now came the most anxious and perilous moments of the whole voyage. It seemed as though we had plunged into a seething, raging whirlpool, from which there could be no escape. The engines were now running at full speed. We had the seas right abeam, and they did what they liked with us, but that was the only course that offered the slightest chance of getting clear.
When I look back, it seems to me incomprehensible that we came out of that witches' cauldron almost unscathed. At the time, I would not have given five minutes' purchase for our lives. I let no hint appear in my bearing of how grave I thought the danger, but I could read on every face the same conviction of our imminent deadly peril.
As though we had not yet had enough of the nerve-racking game, there now swept down on us a fierce squall of hail. Veritable mountains of water reared themselves against us, seeming to overtop our masts. Like monsters opening gaping jaws to leap the next moment upon their prey, they raged against our little vessel, hurled themselves on her decks, and threatened to engulf her. The Aud shuddered and trembled in every timber. At every new assault it seemed as if something must give way.
Only with the utmost effort was it still possible to heave the lead. The leadsmen, with life-lines round them, stood in their streaming oilskins on the after-deck; and though thrown this way and that by the seas, they refused to leave their post, though I had signed to them to come forward.
'Thirty-three fathoms!' Then, at brief intervals, 'Twenty-eight fathoms!—twenty-three—eighteen—fifteen—twelve—eight.' Br-r-umm! A violent shock ran suddenly through the whole ship—masts, derricks, funnel, ventilators, deck-houses; in fact, the whole hull seemed to shake and quiver for several seconds.
Aground! That was my first thought. We looked at each other in dismay. The Aud seemed rooted to the spot. She scarcely even rolled, though one sea after another raced down upon her.
'No water making in the engine-room,' reported the chief engineer, who had rushed, panting, up the ladder. He, too, then, had the impression that we were aground. We put the helm over first to port and then to starboard. In vain. The ship showed not the slightest inclination to move from the spot. Suddenly I happened to glance aft, and saw in a moment the cause of the phenomenon.