Excerpt:- Just then I heard a shouting on deck ; it came dulled through the planks, yet I caught a sharp, fierce note of instant need in it. A minute later the ship leaned down to an outfly of wind that seemed of hurricane force. I heard the thunder of the storm, and saw the lee cabin windows drowned in the green brine, whilst the weather ports winked like blinded eyes with the sudden lashing of foam. My chair gave way, and with a shock I fell with it and rolled down the deck, and for some moments lay helpless, astonished, terrified to the last degree, but unhurt.

Mrs. Burke clung to a stanchion, and I feared, whilst I watched her stout form swinging off it, to see her let go, lest she should flash down upon me and break my neck or maim me for life witli her weight. I could not imagine what was happening save that a sudden hurricane had struck the ship and thrown her on her beam ends. She lay as though capsized, witli a horrible roaring, pounding thunderous noise of water on the weather side of her, and frightful sounds in her hold, threaded with dim notes of rending, as though sails were flogging in rags, or masts going over the sides.

Author: William Clark Russell

Title: Heart of Oak: A Three-Stranded Yarn

Series: n/a

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Format: HC

Date: 1895

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