Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/49

Rh introspections relax his alert understanding of every symptom of the laboring tussle between ship and sea. So far she had come unhurt. Now, once, as she climbed wearily and hung for an instant like a giant see-saw, Captain Kendrick became tensely expectant as he felt through the planking a strange jarring break, somewhere down in her vitals.

Then, instead of splendidly crashing down the long slope into the hidden wrath of water, the Suwannee began to swing broadside as if on a pivot. The wild impulse was unchecked, even as her bow slanted into the tumbling barrier, and heaving far down to port, she rolled helpless and exposed, as a bewildered boxer drops the guard that shields his jaw from the knock-out blow.

"Hard over, hard over," yelled the captain down the tube to an empty wheel-house, for a pallid quartermaster darted from within, and scrambled to the bridge, shouting:

"She won't steer,  her, she won't steer. The gear has carried away below."