"Brail up the foresail, and
double reef the mainsail."
There was a sound far, far off, like a mighty rush of waters, coming
nearer and swelling to a roar--an awful roar of winds and waves. And
Helen was wildly clasping Reyburn, who was plunging with her down the
companion-way.
"Here she comes!" cried the captain. "Hold on all!" And then there was
a shock that threw them prostrate, a writhing and twisting of every
plank beneath them, and the tornado had struck the yacht and knocked
her on her beam-ends.
"Cut away the weather rigging!" they heard the captain thunder through
all the rout before they had once tried to regain themselves. The
quick, sharp blows resounded across the beating of the billow and the
shrieking of the wind and cloud. "Stand clear, all!" and with a crash
as if the heavens were coming together the masts had gone by the
board, and what there was left of the Beachbird had righted and now
rolled a wreck in the trough of the sea.
A half hour's work, but it had done more than wreck a ship: it had
wrecked a passion. For as Helen still clung round Reyburn, sobbing and
screaming, he had seen the opposite door open, and Lilian landing
there, white-robed, white-shawled, with her bright hair about her face
as white as a spirit's. "John," she said, "we are in a hurricane."
"Yes, Lilian," he had answered from where he was stationed close
beside her door.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267