Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/106

 unless the ship was immediately eased of her burden, she must go down.

At this moment every wave seemed to make a deeper and more fatal impression on her. She descended rapidly in the hollows of the sea, and rose with dull and exhausted motion, as if she felt she could do no more. She was worn out in the contest, and about to surrender, like a noble and battered fortress, to the overwhelming power of her enemies. The men seemed stupified with the danger; and I have no doubt, could they have got at the spirits, would have made themselves drunk; and in that state, have met their inevitable fate. At every lurch, the mainmast appeared as if making the most violent efforts to disengage itself from the ship: the weather shrouds became like strait bars of iron, while the lee shrouds hung over in a semicircle to leeward, or with the weather-roll, banged against the mast, and threatened instant destruction, each moment, from the convulsive jerks. We expected to see the mast fall, and