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Carlo was his name; a poor and friendless son of earth, who had no sire; and on life's ocean was swept along, as spoon-drift in a gale. Some months previous, he had landed in Prince's Dock, with his hand- organ, from a Messina vessel; and had walked the streets of Liverpool, playing the sunny airs of southern chines, among the northern fog and drizzle.
Except for the greater violence, the conditions were much the same as a week before; with the exception, however, that the sun shone brightly most of the time from a cloudless sky, between which and us there interposed a milky haze, the vapor of the spoon-drift.
As the boats were being hoisted in, the spoon-drift began to fly across the surface of the hitherto calm ocean, hissing along like sand on the desert. The hitherto smooth undulations now quickly broke up into small waves, increasing rapidly in size and length, with crests of foam crowning their summits. Directly the boats were secured, the captain shouted, "Hands shorten sail!"
"It must be done, Thudicumb!" the captain cried, and this time the mate himself approached the mast, and stood with gleaming axe uplifted, ready to strike. The hurricane howled round us. Every instant the seas increased in height and fury, the spoon-drift from their summits driving in showers over our deck.
Dark clouds were gathering in the northern horizon, and fitful gusts of wind came sweeping over the ocean, stirring up its hitherto calm surface, and sending the spoon-drift flying rapidly over it. Still the chase kept her canvas set, having altered her course more to the southward.
It certainly did look as if one of those heavy, moving, dark green, watery hills rising up on every side, with the spoon-drift flying from their summits, must ere long engulf us; but the tight little craft, buoyant as a cork, with her stout masts and strong new canvas, every rope well served, and not a strand even chafed, rose up, and then sunk down the steep slopes into the wide valleys between the seas, not one breaking aboard us, though we were every now and then pretty well blinded with the showers of spray which drove across the deck.
Through the flying spray and scud and rain Wilbur had a momentary glimpse of Kitchell, hacking at the lanyards with his axe. Then the "Lady Letty" capsized, going over till her masts were flat with the water, and in another second rolled bottom up. For a moment her keel and red iron bottom were visible through the mist of driving spoon-drift. Suddenly they sank from sight. She was gone.
In the midst of the spoon-drift we see, or we think we see, "La Junon" gliding like a phantom-ship towards the river mouth. The lightning seems to work its way into our eyes, the air-shaking thunder rolls and roars around our very ears; the oars are taken in utterly useless, the storm-wind sweeps the boat before it at full speed as though it had been a bit of straw.
As he looked out, there was the sea, hitherto so smooth, now leaping and raging, and covered with seething foam, the spoon-drift flying in vast sheets of white, from top to top of its broken summits, while huge watery mountains seemed about to burst over the deck.
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