It was plain that the vessel grew heavier and heavier; her movements in climbing a wave were more and more dead.
During the night a cry arose: again one of the crew was washed overboard.
It was a long night and a wet one, as Tönnes had predicted. Several times the skipper dived clown into the cabin—Tonnes knew perfectly well what for, but he said nothing. Few words were spoken on board the Anna Dorothea that night.
In the morning the captain, returning from one of his excursions down below, declared that the cabin was half full of water.
"We must watch for a sail," he said, abruptly and somewhat huskily.
Tönnes passed the word round amongst the crew. One might read on their faces that they were prepared for this, and that they had ceased to hope, although they had not stopped work at the pumps.
The whole of the weather bulwark, the cook's cabin and the long-boat, were crushed or washed away; the water could be heard below the hatches. While keeping a sharp lookout for sails, many an eye glanced at the yawl as the last resort. But on board Captain Spang's vessel the words were not yet spoken which carried with them the doom of the ship: "We are sinking!"
In the gray-white of the dawn a signal was to be hoisted; the bunting was tied together at the middle and raised half-mast high.
Both the captain and Tönnes had lashed themselves aft; for now the bark was but little better than a wreck, over which the billows broke incessantly, as the vessel, reeling like a drunken man, exposed herself to the violent attacks of the sea instead of parrying them.
"A sail to windward, captain!" cried Tönnes.