"However, there he was, with his head inside the door, on the girl's
shoulder as likely as not--officer of the watch! The helmsman, on giving
his evidence afterwards, said that he shouted several times that the
binnacle lamp had gone out. It didn't matter to him, because his orders
were to 'sail her close.' 'I thought it funny,' he said, 'that the ship
should keep on falling off in squalls, but I luffed her up every time
as close as I was able. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand before my
face, and the rain came in bucketfuls on my head.'
"The truth was that at every squall the wind hauled aft a little, till
gradually the ship came to be heading straight for the coast, without a
single soul in her being aware of it. Wilmot himself confessed that he
had not been near the standard compass for an hour. He might well have
confessed! The first thing he knew was the man on the look-out shouting
blue murder forward there.
"He tore his neck free, he says, and yelled back at him: 'What do you
say?'
"'I think I hear breakers ahead, sir,' howled the man, and came rushing
aft with the rest of the watch, in the 'awfullest blinding deluge that
ever fell from the sky,' Wilmot says.
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