Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/41

Rh movements. In the heaving sea, she rolled and righted, and rolled and righted, and rolled again, while the brave seamen, cheeriest when work is hardest and danger greatest, were stripping her of her white vesture. At last she was like ourselves, stripped and girt for the battle with wind and wave. It was a gallant and a goodly sight.

Evening came, but not the still quiet of the closing day on shore. The bulkheads and partitions creaked and groaned as if a thousand tortured spirits were writhing in their close seams; the ship leaped as though smitten by rolling hills, and then pitched into yawning gulfs. The wind whistled through the cordage and roared around the sturdy masts, while the dash of waters upon the deck added to this dismal concert.

I had often wished to see the ocean in a rage, but now felt nearly satisfied; a few days later, when, in a much fiercer gale, the ship was hove-to, unable to run on account of the violence of the sea, and rolling her yards and bulwarks into the waves, I should have felt well content if I were never to see a wave again. The driving rain and fierce winds, that seemed tearing mountain masses from the ocean, and