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Updated: May 19, 2025
Moreover, there was no hope whatever of the slightest improvement so long as the gale continued, for even though the rain had ceased, the air was full of spindrift and scud-water that fell upon us in drenching showers; while, cooped up as we were within the circumscribed dimensions of a small boat, there was no possibility of warming ourselves by exercise or active movement of any sort.
I awoke two or three times during the night, and once I turned out and pushed the slide of the companion far enough back to put my head outside; but the night was still as black as pitch, it was blowing harder if anything than before, and the air was full of spindrift and scud-water; so I pushed over the slide again, and tumbled once more into my comfortable hammock, very vividly impressed both with a sense of our helplessness in the midst of such a heavy gale, and also with the comparative degrees of comfort between the decks and the cabin.
The seamen were blown bodily from the thwarts into the bottom of the boat; but Roger, clinging desperately to the gunwale with one hand, and fiercely gripping the tiller with the other, contrived to retain his seat, and strove to pierce the dense mist of scud-water with his eyes, that he might see to beach the boat safely.
Then, with a wild rush and a deafening roar, the gale struck them, and the Flying Fish stout ship as she was fairly shuddered under the force of the blow. In an instant the air became so thick with the driving scud-water that every window in the pilot-house had to be closed to prevent the inmates being drenched to the skin.
As this sound arose I looked away to the westward, the quarter from which it came, and saw, by the faint, sombre, ruddy light of the unnaturally glowing sky, a thin white line appear upon the horizon, lengthening and thickening as I watched, until it became a rushing wall of foam, bearing down upon the felucca at terrific speed, while behind it the heavens grew pitchy black, and the murmur became a low, deep roar, and the roar grew in volume to a bellow, and the bellow rose to an unearthly howl, and the howl to a yelling shriek, as the hurricane leapt at the felucca which, happily, was lying stern-on to it and seized her in its grip, causing the stout, close-reefed lug-sail to fill with a report like that of a cannon, and burying her bows deep in the creamy, hissing smother ere she gathered way, while the scud-water flew over her in blinding, drenching sheets.
The long-expected hurricane was upon us; and now all that remained was to see how long our frail craft could withstand the onslaught of the terrific forces arrayed against her. The air was thick with scud-water, so thick, indeed, that it was like fog, it being impossible to see farther than some twenty fathoms from the boat.
The sea rose with frightful rapidity, notwithstanding that the wind in its furious career caught the crests of the waves as they rose and swept them through the air in a drenching, blinding torrent of scud-water; and in an hour from the bursting of the hurricane we found ourselves exposed to a new danger, that of being pooped and swamped by the mountainous seas which came rushing after us, towering high above our taffrail and momentarily threatening to break on board.
If it had been blowing, say, half as hard as it actually was, there would have been a terrific sea running, but, far from this being the case, the surface of the ocean was as flat as a billiard-table, the slightest roughness being instantly seized by the wind and swept away to leeward in the form of scud-water.
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