The barometer became unsteady, the sky hazy, the air melting hot, and a low, rugged cloud bank appeared over the Seriphus’ port bow.
Down fell the barometer, a half-inch, almost, and the avalanche of rain and wind that struck the freighter was as if Thor was hammering her iron plates.
Ezra Morgan, unable to escape from the typhoon’s center, prepared to ride out the storm by bringing the Seriphus up until she had the sea on the bow, and he had held her there by going half speed ahead. A night of terror ruled the tanker; the decks were awash, stays snapped, spume rose and dashed over the squat funnel aft the bridge.
Morning, red-hued, with greenish patches, revealed a harrowed ocean, waves of tidal height, and astern lay a battered hulk—a freighter, dismasted, smashed, going down slowly by the bow.
“A Japanese tramp,” said Ezra Morgan. “Some Marau or other, out of the Carolines bound for Yokohama.”
Richter, stupid from trade-gin, was on the bridge with the Yankee skipper.
“We can’t help her,” the engineer said heavily. “I think we got all we can do to save ourselves.”
Ezra Morgan entertained another opinion. The storm had somewhat subsided, and the wind was lighter, but the waves were higher than ever he had known them. They broke over the doomed freighter like surf on a reef.
“Yon’s a distress signal flying,” said Ezra Morgan. “There’s a few seamen aft that look like drowned rats. We’ll go before th’ sea—I’ll put th’ sea abart th’ beam, an’ we’ll outboard oil enough to lower a small-boat an’ take those men off that freighter.”
The maneuver was executed, the screw turned slowly, oil was poured through the waste-pipes and spread magically down the wind until the freighter’s deck, from aft the forehouse, could be seen above the waves.