Dodd battened down the hatches and stopped that game.
Then came a danger no skill could avert: the ship lurched so violently
now, as not merely to clip, but bury, her lower deck port-pendents: and
so a good deal of water found ingress through the windage. Then Dodd set
a gang to the pumps: for, he said, "We can hardly hope to weather this
out without shipping a sea: and I won't have water coming in upon water."
And now the wind, raging and roaring like discharges of artillery, and
not like wind as known in our seas, seemed to have put out all the lights
of heaven. The sky was inky black, and quite close to their heads: and
the wind still increasing, the vessel came down to her extreme bearings,
and it was plain she would soon be on her beam ends. Sharpe and Dodd met,
and holding on by the life-lines, applied their speaking trumpets tight
to each other's ears; and even then they had to bawl.
"She can't carry a rag much longer."
"No, sir; not half an hour."
"Can we furl that main taupsle?"
Sharpe shook his head. "The first moment we start a sheet, the sail will
whip the mast out of her.
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