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"See! see! there is a white spot in the horizon!" We all looked towards it. "I fear it is a line of foam-crested seas," said Oliver. "See! it extends far on either side. It is caused by a hurricane, which is sweeping towards us." "Oh, but I am sure there is a sail too!" said Grace. "Look again, Oliver. If you shade your eyes, you will see it rising above the foam."
Yet strange vicissitudes and changes are the portion of those who follow the sea; which may also be applied to other voyagers of space, the sailors of the air. One minute all seems fair, with the sun shining; another, and a white squall is dashing down upon the ship, to catch the crew unawares and perhaps smother them with its mighty foam-crested billows.
Dartmouth stood at one of the windows and looked out over the angry waters. The billows were piling one above the other, black, foam-crested, raging like wild animals beneath the lash of the shrieking wind. Moon and stars gazed down calmly, almost wonderingly, holding their unperturbed watch over the war below. Sublime, forceful, the sight suited the somewhat excited condition of Dartmouth's mind.
I looked down, shuddering, into the black, foam-crested water, bubbling and whirling among the grotesque ice-pillars that stood like sentries upon the brink. The horror of the plot quite unmanned me. I groped for the shelter of the tunnel, and clung to the rocky wall to save myself from obeying a wild impulse to cast myself headlong into the flood below.
On, on we drove, farther and farther to the east, our view now confined to the sides of the two seas, in the dark trough between which we floated, seemingly about to be swallowed up, and now lifted on the summit of a foam-crested billow to the tumultuous mountain masses of water which madly leaped and danced one beyond the other till lost in the line where the murky sky sunk over the seething caldron.
"The sea has been rapidly getting up," replied Jack; "I wish that they were all safe on board." The fourth and last trip was about to be made; even the ship was much less steady than at first. As he took a glance to the eastward, he observed that the foam-crested seas which rolled in had increased in height. Every man on shore had embarked, and Higson's crew now began to haul in on the line.
Not the sound of the rushing winds, nor the sight of the foam-crested billows; not the sense of the awful imprisoned force which was wrestling in the depths below me. The ship is made to struggle with the elements, and the giant has been tamed to obedience, and is manacled in bonds which an earthquake would hardly rend asunder. No!
It was one of the life buoys. As he grasped it, and drew his head up a trifle, Dan saw another floating within thirty feet of him. Swimming hard, and pushing, Dan succeeded in reaching the other buoy. He now rested, holding on to both buoys. "Now, where's David, that little giant?" muttered Dalzell, striving hard to see through the seething waters and over the tops of foam-crested waves.
Now she sank into the trough of the sea, and the huge wave seemed about to dash over her. Again rising to the summit of a foam-crested wave, she was tossed for a few seconds ere she plunged into the watery vale below.
The ferrymen recrossed, pulled our saddle horses by ropes into the river, the gopa held them; again the scow and her frantic crew, poling, paddling, and yelling, were hurried broadside down, and as they swept past there were glimpses above and among the foam-crested surges of the wild- looking heads and drifting forelocks of two grey horses swimming desperately for their lives, a splendid sight.
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