For a second or so he was so
scared and bewildered that he could not remember on which side of the
gulf the ship was. He wasn't a good officer, but he was a seaman all
the same. He pulled himself together in a second, and the right orders
sprang to his lips without thinking. They were to hard up with the helm
and shiver the main and mizzen-topsails.
"It seems that the sails actually fluttered. He couldn't see them, but
he heard them rattling and banging above his head. 'No use! She was too
slow in going off,' he went on, his dirty face twitching, and the damn'd
carter's whip shaking in his hand. 'She seemed to stick fast.' And then
the flutter of the canvas above his head ceased. At this critical moment
the wind hauled aft again with a gust, filling the sails and sending the
ship with a great way upon the rocks on her lee bow. She had overreached
herself in her last little game. Her time had come--the hour, the man,
the black night, the treacherous gust of wind--the right woman to put
an end to her. The brute deserved nothing better.
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