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When that was done, and the great trapezium of canvas had begun to draw and to trail the lee-rail of the Farallone level with the foam, he laughed out an empty laugh, drained his glass, sprawled back among the lumber in the boat, and fetched out a crumpled novel. Herrick watched him, and his indignation glowed red-hot.
A black boy was at the wheel. Captain Jansen, Mr. Three unusually large seas caught us. The boy at the wheel lost his head. Three times the Minota was swept. The breakfast was rushed over the lee-rail. The knives and forks went through the scuppers; a boy aft went clean overboard and was dragged back; and our doughty skipper lay half inboard and half out, jammed in the barbed wire.
On awaking next morning, I found that the breeze had freshened very considerably during the night, so much so indeed that when I went on deck the "Vigilant" was tearing through it with her lee-rail under, although the lateens were reefed to their utmost capacity.
On it came, like a howling fiend, over the tortured surface of the ocean, causing it to hiss and seethe like the contents of a boiling cauldron, and striking the cutter with such resistless fury that she went over helplessly before it, burying her lee-rail so deeply in the brine that her sails lay prostrate upon the surface of the water.
He stopped at the main-shrouds again, the axe descended and the mainmast went over the side. The relief from the weight of the mast and the pressure of the wind upon it was immediate; the Wild Wave rose with a surge and her lee-rail appeared above the surface, then she rose no further. Mr. Timmins looked back again at the captain, but the latter made no sign.
In an instant they were over, nearly on their beam ends, and a heavy sea rushed over the lee-rail, filling the deck. "Hard up your helm!" shouted the captain, and, springing aft, he found the helmsman jammed under the tiller, and the second mate vainly endeavoring to heave it up.
The Marilla she lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her lee-rail up to that time hustlin' on one an' the same slant. But they saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintly they obsarved they'd bin out a matter o' fourteen days and they mis-trusted the Bank has suspinded payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty fathom. 'That's me, sez Counahan. 'That's me iv'ry time!
We accordingly shook both reefs out of the mainsail, and got the foresail and working-jib set, with which canvas we rushed along in true racing style, our lee-rail well buried, and the craft taking just enough weather-helm to allow of her being steered to a hair's-breadth.
Walls of darkness close in upon me, so that, when the last star is gone, the darkness is so near that it seems I can reach out and touch it on every side. When I lean toward it, I can feel it loom against my face. Puff follows puff, and I am glad the mizzen is furled. Phew! that was a stiff one! The Snark goes over and down until her lee-rail is buried and the whole Pacific Ocean is pouring in.
"Steamer's lights ahead on the port bow, sir!" cried the lookout from his station on the forecastle-head. There was excitement in the man's voice. The captain sent Bub below for his night-glasses. Everybody crowded to the lee-rail to gaze at the suspicious stranger, which already began to loom up vague and indistinct.
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