Page:Cruise of the Dry Dock.djvu/176

 of the sea, while she settled heavily by the stern. The most unexpected thing in the world was happening.

The Minnie B was foundering!

In the ghastly light, her masts and rigging swung in a slow drunken reel. Presently she settled back to normal with a heavy crushing sound as the water in her hold rushed forward. She seemed some mighty leviathan weltering in agony. She lay on even keel for four or five minutes while a hissing and spewing of air compressed in her hull told she was slowly settling.

In the ghostly light the foundering vessel gave a strange impression of clinging desperately to her life. She seemed striving to remain upright. Her hissing and sucking might have been a living gasp for breath. Very slowly she rolled over, and came the noise of many waters cascading down over her upflung keel. Her masts crashed, yards broke, rigging popped in the wildest confusion as they dashed into the sea. Great phosphorescent waves dashed through the prone rigging and over the hull in liquid fire. A sea of quicksilver leaped up to lick her down. With great bubbling and sucking and groaning,