Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/153

 for Brindisi at a twenty-two-knot clip, through a smoke of water, rolling, tunneling, throbbing, screaming with her siren, and flaunting her fragility.

"Crack it on, little ship!" said Beauling, heartily. "Make 'em sick—smash that big, green feller! Be a train—be a train!"

The little ship gurgled, lifted, shivered in all her steel nerves, as a short-haired dog shivers in the cold, and struck, and struck again, till the seas roared for the ferocity of her attack.

"Faster, little ship!" said Beauling; "faster—give 'em hell—I'm going home!"—Smash—bang!—"I'm going home!"

Two islands bullied the storm back from a long ribbon of a channel. The Isis flew at the smooth strip, went over it like a skater, and bucked the rage of waters at the other end. Beauling, drenched to the skin, clung to things, and, whenever the whole Mediterranean tried to get down his throat, howled with joy. He was maddened with the exhilaration of the opposing seas. It was so rough