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The ship had struck on the sand, and the beams and timbers had not ceased trembling and groaning, when a sea struck her larboard broadside, throwing her over on her beam-ends, so that the starboard side of the main-deck and the guns were under water. It would be impossible after this to detail what occurred in a clear and correct manner, as the noise and confusion were so terrible.
Now, some men could have gone on writing stories in the intervals between surveying customs, and have thus placed an anchor to windward against the time when the political storm should set in; but Nathaniel Hawthorne was devoid of that useful ability. Nor had he been able to spend less than he earned; so, suddenly, there he was on his beam-ends.
The next moment the on-coming vessel struck them, fortunately not end-on or amidships, but in a slanting fashion, her cutwater sliding by the gunwale of the cutter, from bow to stern, with a harsh, grating sound and a rasping movement that shook their very vitals the little yacht heeling over the while until she was almost on her beam-ends.
We has so many reports in our cabin, that there isn't an officer in the fleet that can make 'em better, as myself, sir." "There are a hundred who would spend fewer words on any thing. What is your business?" "Why, sir, just to report one flag struck, and a commander-in-chief on his beam-ends." "Good God!
I had my masts shot away, and I rigged jury-masts: I made sail on them, and was getting fairly into port, when the little martinet very cruelly threw my ship on her beam-ends on a dead lee-shore, a dark night, and blowing a hurricane, and told me to get her out of that scrape if I could.
He looked aft, towards the point from which he supposed himself to have been drifting. He was not sure of the direction; for the rude construction on which he stood had kept constantly whirling in the water, now the stem, now the quarters, anon the bows, or beam-ends turned towards the breeze. He looked, but saw nothing.
We all stood waiting for its coming, when the first blast showed us that it was not be trifled with. Rain, sleet, snow, and wind, enough to take our breath from us, and make the toughest turn his back to windward! The ship lay nearly over on her beam-ends; the spars and rigging snapped and cracked; and her top-gallant masts bent like whip-sticks.
I directed Bob to open the companion now, as I was fearful that Ella might have received some injury when the cutter was hove on her beam-ends; but, to my great joy, as soon as the doors were thrown back, there she was, clinging desperately to the ladder, terribly frightened, but unhurt, as she assured me, beyond a few unimportant bruises.
Of course the experienced skipper had observed the change long ago it required only a glance to perceive it the cutter herself, now lying at anchor, beam-ends to the shore, indicated the change, for the Kroomen had reported, that when she first anchored her head was pointed directly for the land.
I had taken a disgust to the ship; and though I had never blasphemed since the hour of the accident in the way I did the day the Susan and Mary was thrown on her beam-ends, I may be said to have crossed the Atlantic in the Hope, grumbling and swearing at the ship. Still, our living and our treatment were both good. At Rotterdam, we got a little money, with liberty.
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