Out of the forecastle door thick clouds of black mist were rolling,
exactly as if the hold of the ship were on fire. For a meddlesome pirate
had found the leather bag of storm-wind and had opened it, mistaking it
for a bag of wine.
The strange clouds, swirling round the deck, grew instant by instant
darker and denser. Soon the tops of the masts could no longer be
distinguished. The sun took on a horrible copper hue, and the sea became
a mottled black and green. A howling wind arose.
A moment later, with the violence of an explosion, the storm burst.
Mountain-high rose the glassy white-capped waves. The lightning fell in
violet cataracts, and thunder roared and tumbled through the caverns of
the sky. An ocean of hissing rain fell into the waters.
Suddenly the pirate chief, as he staggered down the stairs, shouted, "We
are lost!"
Just astern, an enormous, glassy wave, higher than the masts of the
ship, was about to break. The pirates yelled, but little good their
yelling did them. An instant later the wave broke upon the deck, and
crashing tons of green water swept every single pirate into the sea.
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