At midnight, orders were given to furl the fore and mizen topsails. With
immense efforts men crawled aloft through a merciless buffeting, saved
the canvas and crawled down almost exhausted, to bear in panting silence
the cruel battering of the seas. Perhaps for the first time in the
history of the merchant service the watch, told to go below, did not
leave the deck, as if compelled to remain there by the fascination of a
venomous violence. At every heavy gust men, huddled together, whispered
to one another.'--"It can blow no harder"--and presently the gale would
give: them the lie with a piercing shriek, and drive their breath back
into their throats. A fierce squall seemed to burst asunder the thick
mass of sooty vapours; and above the wrack of torn clouds glimpses could
be caught of the high moon rushing backwards with frightful speed over
the sky, right into the wind's eye. Many hung their heads, muttering
that it "turned their inwards out" to look at it. Soon the clouds closed
up and the world again became a raging, blind darkness that howled,
flinging at the lonely ship salt sprays and sleet.
About half-past seven the pitchy obscurity round us turned a ghastly
grey, and we knew that the sun had risen.
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