Page:The Rambler in Mexico.djvu/22

 16 difficulty to descry her motions distinctly in the thickening haze. She was seen to career midway among the breakers, when suddenly her change of position and inclination told us that she had struck. A few minutes of intense anxiety followed. To return was impossible, and if she did not advance, her total loss was unavoidable. We saw her heave and strike heavily three or four times, as the sea rolled in upon her, and had given her up for lost, when providentially a heavier billow than ordinary carried her over the last ridge, and righting, she was in safety. How we envied her!

As evening darkened the deck, the wind increased, and the captain no longer made a secret of his conviction that we should be driven out to sea before morning. There was something like despair painted on the visages of some, when this became known; and a volley of curses, deep, not loud, answered the announcement.

We were not long left in uncertainty. "The ship to the southward is scudding!" said one. "There goes the brig!" exclaimed another, I remember I was in my usual position on deck, near the little tiller; now and then glancing at the dim form of our nearest neighbour; or searching into the gloom to windward, striving to penetrate the dusk out of which one spectral foam-tipped billow was heaving and passing under us after another, urged by the impulse of a strong but steady wind, when all of a sudden the goelette received a shock from the opposite quarter which staggered all up-on deck, and steadied her completely for the moment.

"El norte!" yelled the mate at my elbow, as a torrent of wind and spray swept over the deck. "El norte!" echoed Cortina, the shipless captain, "I lost my ship in the last!" "El norte!" shouted the bravo, excited by the coming struggle with the elements, for which he had been preparing himself by stripping almost naked, and tying a ragged handkerchief about his head, "Helm hard down—ship the chain cable!" responded the captain, as he hoisted the jib with his own hands; and instantly the harsh sound of the iron was