Down came the gale with a whoo, and made all crack. The ship lay over pretty much, and the sea poured in at Mr. Grey’s port. He applied his purchase to close it. But though his tackle gave him the force of a dozen hands, he might as well have tried to move a mountain: on the contrary, the tremendous sea rushed in and burst the port wide open. Grey, after a vain struggle with its might, shrieked for help; down tumbled the nearest hands, and hauled on the tackle in vain. Destruction was rushing on the ship, and on them first. But meantime the captain, with a shrewd guess at the general nature of the danger he could not see, had roared out, “Slack the main sheet!” The ship righted, and the port came flying to, and terror-stricken men breathed hard, up to their waists in water and floating boxes. Grey barred the unlucky port, and went aft, drenched in body, and wrecked in mind, to report his own fault. He found the captain looking grim as death. He told him, almost crying, what he had done, and how he had miscalculated the power of the water.
Dodd looked and saw his distress. “Let it be a lesson, sir,” said he, sternly. “How many ships have been lost by this in fair weather, and not a man saved to tell how the craft was fooled away?”
“Captain, bid me fling myself over the side, and I’ll do it.”
“Humph! I’m afraid I can’t afford to lose a good officer for a fault he—will—never—repeat.”
It blew hard all night and till twelve the next day. The Agra showed her weak point: she rolled abominably. A dirty night came on. At eight bells Mr. Grey touched by Dodd’s clemency, and brimful of zeal, reported a light in Mrs. Beresford’s cabin. It had been put out as usual by the master-at-arms; but the refractory one had relighted it.
“Go and take it away,” said Dodd.
Soon screams were heard from the cabin. “Oh! mercy! mercy! I will not be drowned in the dark.”
Dodd, who had kept clear of her so long, went down and tried to reassure her.
“Oh, the tempest! the tempest!” she cried. “And to be drowned in the dark!”
“Tempest? It is blowing half a gale of wind; that is all.”