"Good, Mary, you caught it at the start. We'll have a capful of wind here presently, and a sea fit to swallow us before morning, for the centre of this storm is southwest of us, and we're on its worst side. We must get the bark hove to on the port tack."
A few moments later ragged patches of grayish-brown cloud began to fly over the bark, and then the wind burst upon her with a wild and terrifying shriek. It came fair over the starboard-quarter, and drove the Bunker Hill's lee rail level with the water; but under Captain Kent's orders the canvas was trimmed, the bark's head fell off, she wore round, and came up to the wind on the port tack. The ocean was blown out into a flat plain of boiling foam for a few minutes, but that state of things could not last long. Before five o'clock a tremendous sea was running, and the Bunker Hill was reeling through it like a crazy vessel.
Mary was already tired. She would not have confessed it, but she felt the strain of the long voyage, with its succession of nursing and service as assistant to her father. So she was glad enough to see him looking fresh, hearty, and reliant as he stood near the lee rail.
"Well, dear," he roared in her ear, "we are as snug as we can be, and you and I'd better go below and get a bite to eat."
The girl willingly accompanied her father to the cabin, where they made shift to get such a meal as the crazy swoops and lurches of the vessel allowed. They had hardly finished when there was a report like a cannon-shot, and one of the men bawled down,
"The main-tops'l's gone, sir."
"Stay you here, Mary," said the Captain, as he sprang up the steps to the deck.
Mary heard his strong voice shouting orders that rang above the roaring of the gale. Then there was a confusion of cries forward and the crash of tons of water falling on the forecastle deck. Mary knew that the bark had shipped a great wave, and she felt instinctively that something had happened. She rushed on deck. The lee scuppers were running off water in great spouts, and the deck forward was littered with disarranged rigging. But that was not what terrified Mary. She saw her father half lying and half leaning against the lee rail, apparently in an agony of pain.
"Father! father!" she cried, as she ran to his side, "what is the matter?"
"A thump—in the ribs," he gasped. "I guess—something's broken."