Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/242

 clustered together by the cabin roof were the negro, the Swede, the Gloucester man and Varge.

"I'se done knowed it. I'se done knowed it," sobbed 'Rastus hysterically. "Just Jonah's luck—I'se done know—"

"Shet up!" screeched the Gloucester man at him; then, in a yell that carried high above the battling elements: "Hold fast! Hold fast! Hyar she comes! Hold—"

Over the bows, far, far up, showed a queer wavering white streak, topping a gigantic, on-rushing wall of utter blackness. A moment it seemed to hang in awful hesitancy—then the tumbling tons of water crashed over the bows, shaking the schooner as a terrier shakes a rat, and, burying the deck, came on roaring, seething, hissing high above the rails, engulfing them.

With all his strength Varge clung to the corner of the "house"—he was torn from his hold in an instant. He felt himself lifted, rolled over and over, then flung against something with a vicious shock—mechanically his hands shot out, gripped again, and, smothered, choked, half-stunned by the blow he hung grimly on.

It was not so bad now—the impact, the dead weight of water with its terrific velocity behind it was gone, but there was the suction of the receding water that still dragged and pulled at him as if to wrench his arms from their sockets. He got his head above the water. A wild, tearing, ripping sound was in his ears—then a crack, short and sharp as the report of an explosion. Above him a great misty white phantom seemed to dance and totter and wave its arms and shriek madly—then it seemed to blow away—while, crunching the forward