The novice aboard was elated, for he thought that the fiercer the
wind blew behind the vessel, the faster the steamer would be driven
forward. How little some of us really know! The cyclone at sea is a
rotary storm, or hurricane, of extended circuit. Black clouds drive down
upon the sea and ship with a tiger's fierceness as if to crush all life
in their pathway.
Officers and crew, in waterproof garments, become as restless as bunched
cattle in a prairie blizzard. All eyes now roam from prow to stern, from
deck to top mast. The lightning's blue flame plays with the steel masts,
and overhead thunders drown the noise of engines and propellers. Thick
black smoke and red-hot cinders shoot forth from the three black-throated
smoke-stacks.
The huge steamer, no longer moving with the ease of the leviathan, seems
a tiny craft and almost helpless in the chopped seas that give to the
ship a complex motion so difficult, even for old sailors, to anticipate.
Tidal wave follows tidal wave in rapid succession. Both trough and crest
are whipped into whitecaps like tents afield, till sea and storm seem
leagued to deluge the world again.
Captain Morgan, lashed to the bridge, has full confidence in himself, his
doubled watch ahead, his compasses, and the throbbing engines below.
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