Relieving her from one danger, this subjected her to another and a
terrible one. The heavy spars that had fallen, unable to break loose from
the rigging, pounded the ship so savagely as to threaten to stave in her
side. Add to this that, with labouring so long and severely, some of the
ship's seams began now to open and shut and discharge the oakum, which is
terrible to the bravest seamen. Yet neither this stout captain nor his
crew shirked any danger men had ever grappled with since men were. Dodd
ordered them to cut away the wreck to leeward; it was done: then to
windward; this, the more ticklish operation, was also done smartly: the
wreck passed under the ship's quarter, and she drifted clear of it They
breathed again.
At eight bells in the first watch it began to thunder and lighten
furiously; but the thunder, though close, was quite inaudible in the
tremendous uproar of the wind and sea. It blew a hurricane: there were no
more squalls now; but one continuous tornado, which in its passage
through that great gaunt skeleton, the ship's rigging and bare poles,
howled and yelled and roared so terrifically, as would have silenced a
salvo of artillery fired alongside.
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