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In another moment, still flying up into the wind, the felucca crashed into our starboard quarter with a shock which made us heel to our covering-board, and caused our antagonist to rebound a full fathom from us.
I must confess I was astonished when I beheld the effect of our fire upon the former; I could scarcely credit that so much damage had been inflicted by our six-pounders in so short time, her stern above the level of the covering-board being absolutely battered to pieces, while the shot had also ploughed up her decks fore and aft in long, scoring gashes, so close together and crossing each other in such a way as showed what a tremendous raking she had received.
"All ready, sir," came the reply, scarcely audible above the roar of the tempest that was now close upon us; and as the man spoke a fierce gust of wind laden with salt mist swooped down upon us and careened the schooner almost to her covering-board as it filled the foresail with a jar and a report like that of a nine-pounder.
As we shot up alongside I found that the vessel was certainly deeper in the water than I had at first imagined her to be, yet not deeper than might be accounted for by her carrying a heavy cargo; her covering-board seemed to be about eighteen inches above the water, and I therefore had no difficulty in clambering in over her bulwarks from the gunwale of the boat, of course taking care to carry the end of the boat's painter on board with me.
A reaction from the excitement that had sustained me during my labours had set in, and I am persuaded that had any further exertion been necessary for the preservation of my life I should not have undertaken it. Meanwhile the felucca had sunk nearly to her covering-board, and might be expected to founder at any moment.
I had at one time, during the black hours, struck into a mournful calculation, and reckoned that the brig would float some two or three hours after sunrise; but when the glorious beam flashed out at last, and transformed the ashen hue of dawn into a cerulean brilliance and a deep of rolling sapphire, I started with sudden terror to observe how close the covering-board sat upon the water, and how the head of every swell ran past as high as the bulwark rail.
La Salle and Kennedy swung the boat until her bow pointed due east, leaving her broadsides bearing north and south; and then, excavating a deeper furrow in the hollow between two hummocks, the boat was slid into her berth, and the broken masses of icy snow piled against and over her, until nothing but her covering-board was visible.
She was the only lady who ventured on deck that day for the weather was so thick that there was nothing to see, beyond an occasional buoy marking out the position of a sandbank, a grimy Geordie, loaded down to her covering-board, driving along up the river under a brace of patched and sooty topsails, or an inward-bound south-spainer in tow of a tug; but this fact of her being the only representative of her sex on deck appeared to disconcert Miss Onslow not at all; she was as absolutely self-possessed as though she and the general had been in sole possession of the deck, as indeed they were, so far as she was concerned, for she calmly and utterly ignored the presence of the rest of us, excepting the skipper, with whom and with the general she conversed with much vivacity.
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