Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/81

Rh that was making off in this manner, or the débris of a wreck?

On a sign from the captain, the Great Eastern shifted her course, in order to avoid the spars, which threatened to get entangled in the paddles. Looking more attentively, I saw that the sea had carried off the bulwarks on the larboard side, which were fifty feet above the surface of the water; the jambs were broken, the taggers torn away, and the shattered remnants of glass still trembled in their casements. The Great Eastern had staggered beneath the shock, but she continued on her way with an indomitable audacity. It was necessary, as quickly as possible, to remove the spars which encumbered the ship at the bows, and in order to do this it was indispensable to avoid the sea, but the steamship obstinately continued to make head against the waves. The spirit of her captain seemed to animate her; he did not want to yield, and yield he would not. An officer and some men were sent to the bows to clear the deck.

"Mind," said the Doctor to me, "the moment of the catastrophe is not far off."

The sailors went towards the bows, whilst we fastened ourselves to the second mast, and looked through the spray, which fell in showers over us with each wave. Suddenly there was another swoop more violent than the first, and the sea poured through the barricading by the opened breach, tore off an enormous sheet of cast-iron which covered the bit of the bows, broke away the massive top of the hatchway leading to the crew's berths, and lashing against the starboard barricadings, swept them off like the sheets of a sail.

The men were knocked down; one of them, an officer, half-drowned, shook his red whiskers, and picked himself up; then seeing one of the sailors lying unconscious across an anchor, he hurried towards him, lifted him on his shoulders and carried him away. At this moment the rest of the crew escaped through the broken hatchway. There were three feet of water in the 'tween-decks, new spars covered the sea, and amongst other things several thousand of the dolls, which my countryman had thought to acclimatize in America; these little bodies, torn from their cases by the sea, danced on the summits of the waves, and under