"Christ." Winston was staring aloft, his face washed in the rain.
She followed his gaze. The mainmast had split, just below the maintop. The topsail had fallen forward, into the foremast, and had ripped through the foresail. A startled main-topman was dangling helplessly from the side of his round perch. Then something else cracked, and he tumbled toward the deck, landing in the middle of a crowd of terrified seamen huddled by the fo'c'sle door.
"I knew we couldn't bear full sail in this weather. We've just lost a good half of our canvas." He looked back. "You've got to go below now. Please. And see if you can somehow take that woman with you. We're in very bad trouble. If I was a religious man, I'd be on my knees praying right now."
The Gloucester's guns spoke once more, and a shot clipped the quartergallery only feet below where they were, showering splinters upward through the air.
"Atiba!" Serina was staring down over the railing, toward the hole that had been ripped in the corner of the Great Cabin beneath them.
Then she looked out at the warship, and the hard voice rose again. "Iwo ko lu oniran li oru o nlu u li ossan?" Finally her eyes flared and she shouted through the storm, "Shango. Oyinbo I'o je!"
Once more the lightning came.
Later he wondered if he might have been praying after all. He remembered how the fork of fire slid down the mainmast of the Gloucester, then seemed to envelop the maintop, sending smoke billowing through the tops'ls above. Next it coiled about the mainmast shrouds.
In moments her main tops'l was aflame, as though she'd been caught with fire-arrows. Soon a tongue of the blaze flicked downward and ignited her main course. After that the shrouds began to smolder. Almost immediately her seamen began furling the other sails, and all open gunports were quickly slammed down to stop any shreds of burning canvas from accidentally reaching the gun deck. Next the helmsman threw his weight against the whipstaff to try and take her off the wind.
She was still underway, like a crippled fireship bearing down on them, and for a moment Winston thought they were in even greater danger than before. But then the Gloucester's mainmast slowly toppled forward as the shrouds gave way, tearing into the other rigging, and she heeled. It was impossible to see what followed, because of the rain, but moments later burning spars were drifting across the waves.