It passed away. For a moment a livid sun shot
horizontally the last rays of sinister light between the hills of steep,
rolling waves. Then a wild night rushed in--stamped out in a great howl
that dismal remnant of a stormy day.
There was no sleep on board that night. Most seamen remember in their
life one or two such nights of a culminating gale. Nothing seems left of
the whole universe but darkness, clamour, fury--and the ship. And
like the last vestige of a shattered creation she drifts, bearing an
anguished remnant of sinful mankind, through the distress, tumult, and
pain of an avenging terror. No one slept in the forecastle. The tin
oil-lamp suspended on a long string, smoking, described wide circles;
wet clothing made dark heaps on the glistening floor; a thin layer of
water rushed to and fro. In the bed-places men lay booted, resting on
elbows and with open eyes. Hung-up suits of oilskin swung out and
in, lively and disquieting like reckless ghosts of decapitated seamen
dancing in a tempest. No one spoke and all listened. Outside the night
moaned and sobbed to the accompaniment of a continuous loud tremor as
of innumerable drums beating far off.
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