The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1889-06-27

opy, as if it were sucked thither by some
malign attraction. Presently the ears of
the observers began to be conscious of
! singular minor sound, somewhat resem-
bling that produced by the wind on
telegraph wire, only infinitely more hol-
low, deep and reverberating. 1t re-
! sounded all over the level surface of the
/ pallid sea, and appeared to be echoed
back from the horizon and the vault
above, as if the heavens were a metallic
inclosing dome. 1t sang and resoundeo
and roared, but still with an inner sound
as if that which uttered it were still afar,
or walled off by some obstacle that it had
not yet overcome. Everything else was
deathly still; the plash of the foars
against the vessels bows and under hen
stern was the only other sound, but THAI,
seemed abnormally loud.
The captains voice on the bridge broke
out with startling distinctness, though
! he spoke not above his customary pitch
| He gave the order to put the vessel
about, Immediately she began to swing
| round on her course, describing a semi
| circular sweep with her stern; and in a
few minutes she lay with the cloud at her
back, and her bows pointed towards the
unclouded regions of the northeast. Her
propeller still moved, but slowly; she
was like champion awaiting the onset
of an enemy and gathering himself up
for the struggle.
The enemy was now at hand. By this
time the central advance had thrown out
two long black arms that crept along the
horizon to the right and left, inclosing
the vessel in a deadly embrace Dark
ness fell over them as from an eclipse;
the unshadowed east, ere it vanished al
together from sight, looked like scene
viewed through tunnel. The moment
was one of awful suspense; no human
creature could long have endured it
without giving way to some outbreak of
thick in the veins; the brain throbbed
confusedly; the breath came in difficult
signs. With a sudden but majestic up
ward graduation, the minor roar swelled
to deafening shrieks Of noise; there was
vision Of white fury of waters astern;
a blast as cold as winter swept from the
! taffrail to the bowsprit; the dark
ness shut down and became alb
I solute, SO that the observer seemed
| plunged into impalpable pitch; and then
with paralyzing shock the hurricane
smote the vessel, beating her down into
the sea as by the sheer weight of giant
hand. The next instant, with shudder
and spring, she leaped forward, stag
! gered, and leaped again. Fragments of
! boiling surge hurtled along her decks,
! striking what they encountered with the
| of grape shot. The mizzen mast broke
off within a yard of the deck, and, lash
| ing forward, struck the main mast and
brought it down in ruin, though the
noise Of the crash was inaudible in the
yell of the frenzied gale. The steamer
was rushing onward at headlong speed,
! yet she seemed to be standing still. so
fast did wind and sea fly past her. She
reeled, staggered, leaped, was buried and
rose again, again to be overwhelmed. 1t
seemed another world, another age, COM
pared with the sunlight and calm of few
minutes previous Blind, whirling, well
tering chaos had engulfed all things;
nothing could be seen, nothing heard,
nothing done nor directed; only awful
plungings and strainings could be felt,
and thunderous blows and shocks. Only
by these signs could it be known that
the vessel was still above the water, still
being swept onward Whittier, and to
what fate, none could foretell.
The sea was at first beaten fiat by the
wind. though great pieces Of water were
stripped from the surface and dashed
through the air; by and by, however,
waves began to form, but irregularly,
some rolling low, some reaching aloft
and stalking gigantic. One of these,
hurrying through the blackness, mounted
the steamers stern and traversed her
deck to the bows, carrying with it the
funnel, the remaining mast and every
thing on board that offered resistance
That wave struck the forecastle with
report like the bursting Of siege gun,
stove through the oaken planks, and
dashed a hundred tons of water through
the opening. All therein were drowned
and crushed to pieces, and the bodies Of
several were whirled out again and car
ried like rags off into the waste of the
tornado. Heavily the ship rose from the
blow: it seemed as if she could never
rise again But up she came, and the
weight of water went booming aft,
breaking down partitions and deluging
cabins and state rooms. More than fifty
men were killed or disabled by that sin
gle buffet, and the survivors believed
that the end of all of them could be not
many minutes distant.
But it SO happened that no catastrophe
Of equal terror followed. The ship drove
on, sometimes threatening to breach to,
yet maintaining her Storage way beyond
all expectation, on the whole; and when
some time had passed-how long, no one
ever knew-the hurricane fell faint. and
in a breath or two, as it seemed, died
quite away. The darkness lightened,
and straight overhead appeared a patch
of sky half yelled by wheeling shreds of
mist. They were in the center of the
tornado; and now the waves leaped up
with a rebound SO breakneck and astound-
ing that all sense Of vertical and hori-