Rain at that instant struck the brig in a whole sheet of water. It came along with a roar and shriek of wind and wet. The cataractal drench was swept in steam off our decks by the black squall it blew along in; the fierce slap of it fired the sea, and we washed through an ocean of light, pale and green.
“By Cott, den——” bawled Bol.
“Breakers ahead!” roared a voice from the forecastle.
“Breakers on the lee-bow!” cried another voice.
It was like being blinded and shocked by lightning to hear those cries. They were paralyzing. For an instant I looked and listened idly.
Then—“Hard a-starboard every spoke! Hard a-starboard every spoke!” I shouted, and flung myself upon the wheel to help the men there, roaring meanwhile to Bol to call hands to the main braces and to get the fore tack and sheet raised. He rushed forward, thundering. Never had Dutchman the like of such a voice as Bol.
The brig was in the wind; she was pitching furiously head to sea, the canvas thrashing in the blackness, the gale splitting in lunatic shrieks upon every rope and spar, the strange, hoarse shouts of the seamen rising and falling in shuddering notes upon the clamor that surged above as the water rolled below.
I had fled from the wheel to the side to look for the land, and was straining my vision against the wet obscurity in vain search of the white water of breakers, or of the overhanging midnight shadow that should denote the island close aboard, when—the brig struck! a violent shock ran through the length of her; every timber thrilled as though a mine had been sprung under her keel. “O God, that it should have come to it!” I thought.
“Round with that fore yard, men,” I roared; “don’t let her hang! don’t let her hang!” Again the brig struck. A sort of raging chorus full of curses and the passion of terror broke from the seamen as they dragged. The rain cleared as suddenly as it had begun, the brig’s head was paying off, and my heart swelled in thanks as she listed over to larboard, trembling to a blow of sea that rose in a mountain of milk upon her bow.
“Where are you, Fielding?” shouted the voice of Greaves.