There was not a breath of air. This terrific fall came down in perfectly perpendicular lines; and as the lightning rushed through it, it illuminated with its ghastly effulgence a broad sheet of water.
It was so dark that I could not see the card in the binnacle. The water rushed off our decks just as it would had we shipped a sea. And for the space of twenty minutes I stood stunned, deaf, blind, in the midst of a horrible and overpowering concert of pealing thunder and rushing rain, the awful gloom being rendered yet more dreadful by the dazzling flashes which passed through it.
It passed as suddenly as it had come, and left us still in a breathless calm, drenched, terrified, and motionless.
It grew lighter to windward, and I felt a small air blowing on my streaming face; lighter still, though to leeward the storm was raging and roaring, and passing with its darkness like some unearthly night.
I squeezed the water out of my eyes, and saw the wind come rushing towards us upon the sea, whilst all overhead the sky was a broad lead-coloured space.
"Now, bo'sun," I roared, "stand by!"
He came out from under the grating, and took a grip of the rail.
"Here it comes!" he cried; "and by the holy poker," he added, "here comes the long-boat atop of it!"
I could only cast one brief glance in the direction indicated, where, sure enough, I saw the long-boat flying towards us on a surface of foam. In an instant the gale struck the ship and over she heeled, laying her port bulwark close down upon the water. But there she stopped.
"Had we had whole topsails," I cried, "it would have been Amen!"