The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1914-03-26

1870
served my apprenticeship, and we
were homeward bound, says a
writer in Cassell's Saturday Jour
nal. We had swept up past the
foam grit Azores and we were saying
that five more days would raise the
Lizard light.
AS we plunged farther north the
breeze freshened and grew until 1t
seemed as though the very powers OF
the air were conspiring together to
watt us onward at our best pace
Still the gale increased and when at
length we breasted the waters Of the
Bay OF Biscay we found it arrayed In
all its grim majesty to greet us. AS
far as our salt filled eyes could see
there was nothing a v a heaving
waste of darkling, greenish-gray wa
ter, whipped across by flying sheets of
solid ~spindrift, that ever and anon
was lifted in the arms of the storm
and flung aboard US in chilling
wreaths. Before we could spit out
the salt from our mouths the great,
green combers rolled sullenly up, the
low side Of the vessel heeled to meet
them and then, rising as a heavy
sQuall struck down upon her, hove
aboard a few hundred tons of the At
lantic ocean in n solid mass that
filled the deck waist high.
So the night fell, and men looked
one another in the face, and perhaps
for the first time fear dawned in the
eyes Of some. The captain hung grimly
to the weather shrouds OF the mizzen
and peered with staring eyes through
the vibrating gloom at the over
wrought main topgallant sail on
which our very safety depended. 1t
was an old sail, for we had not had
time to bend the heavy weather can
vas properly before these vigorous
gales had commenced, and this sail
was only the fine weather sheet we
carried through the tropics. If that
sail split, they said, nothing could save
the ship. There would be one hunted
heap as a sea caught her up astern, a
wild swirling of down dragging wa
ter and then-the inevitable end.
Ship on Her Beam Ends.
Though the night was black with
the ~blackness of the grave, there was
a sort of ghostly sheen given off from
the spray that showed us occasionally
how the ship was behaving. Through
out that voyage we had bestowed
every anathema in our vocabulary on
the craft for her unkindliness, for she
was loaded deep with inter, and was
as buoyant as an iron bridge. Now
che knyA hnr -, -a;.- 49,. L.-l -
the air, while her squattering stern
sunk down as though it would never
rise again. Again, with a swoosh and
q sullen roar, she buried her sharp
bowsprit to the knightheads and far
beyond, while the solid sea climbed
up the slope of her decks to the very
main hatch. The stern waggled drunk
emily against the black gray sky, and
we who lay there, with blinded eyes
and grasping hands, hung madly to
any rope that drifted our way. for
dear life.
1t seemed impossible that the sky
could hold more potent powers than
those that were now laundering
about US, and yet, as long minute
dragged itself away after long minute,
b wind gained a velocity that was
tremendous. 1t was more than a hur-
ricane; it was a typhoon, a pampero,
a black norther, all welded into one
awful whole.
On the stroke Of midnight a squat
flared upon US with such a whistling
velocity that, though we were lying
at length on the poopdeck, we were
blown like feathers hard against the
lee rail. The breath was knocked COM
pletely out of our bodies and we said
the end was come The ship was
thrown fat on her beam ends. She
iurched wildly and a long groan from
every straining plate rose above that
fiendish din of the storm. A sharp
cracking aloft told of something
amiss, and when the next lightning
fash sizzled overhead we sent our
eyes to the main t~opgallant sail with
one accord. But 1t still held. A dull
rumbling crash forward told US where
the damage was done; there was the
thunder of falling spars and the fore
a~opgallant mast went by the board.
And then, when the squat was at
Ses height, the wind shifted like a
flash. 1t had blown hard from the
southwest; 1t now blew harder from
the northwest. We thought no wind
could blow SO ferociously. but the
force of the preceding breeze was as
e-maiderA. sigh comgared with what
followed. BY the light of the pinnacle
we could see the. helmsman and ths.
captain, together with both mates.
laboring hard to get the helm up and
the ship away before the shifted wind.
Their faces cleaned CHASTITY and W.