Page:Bill the minder.djvu/71

 THE ANCIENT MARINER up to the size of Ludgate Hill. Whole shoals of the passive skate arose to the surface and flopped warningly about our vessel. To leeward could be seen flocks of the wild sea shrike, whose ominous bark could be distinctly heard above the snort of the coming tempest. By now the cloud had half filled the heavens; the seas rose higher and higher; the din was terrific, as the wind tore from the sea shoal upon shoal of the shy sardine and whirled them through the air. Soon the ship was drenched in the high seas that continually broke over her and the quarts and quarts of rain that wolloped from the dense cloud now covering the whole sky and blotting out all light.

'At last came the order from the captain, who now realised the danger that threatened his vessel. "Up helm," roared he, through his speaking-trumpet, "clew up the lee braces of the topsail halyards; haul out the reef tackle and brail up the spanker." But the command came too late. The fore-topsail studding booms went by the board, carrying with them the bowsprit, the main mast, the fo'c's'le, the topgallant studding-sail halyard, and the captain's tobacco-pouch, which had been placed upon the bowsprit earlier in the afternoon. Nothing could now be seen except, here and there, the gleam on some fish as it was whirled, with the masts, men, boots, screws, sharks, thimbles, sea anemones, watch-chains, ship's stores, planks, and other miscellaneous 43