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"The lady jumped up with a scream, and seized hold of Mr. Robinson's
arm, who seeming to forget what he was about, shook her off, and fell
to raving to me to see that the steamer didn't touch us. By thunder,
sir, there was the cowardly brute slanting her flying length as though
to cross our hawse, but clearly aiming to strike us right amidships.
I shouted to the men to make ready and 'bout ship, and a minute after
I shoved the tiller over, and the yacht rounded like a woman waltzing.
But before we had gathered way the steamer was after us. The lady sent
up scream after scream. Mr. Robinson stood motionless, seeing as plain
as I that if the steamer meant to sink us there was no seamanship in
this wide world that could stop her; and I saw the men throwing off
their shoes and half stripping themselves, ready for what was to come.
"The steamer headed dead to strike our weather-beam; she rushed at us
with the foam boiling over her bows; once more I chucked the schooner
right up into the wind, and the steamer went past us like a rocket
under our stern. I looked at her and sha'n't ever forget what I saw.
There was a white-haired man, with white whiskers and bareheaded,
roaring and raging at us in the grasp of three or four seamen. 'Twas
like a death-struggle. A chap who looked as if he had just seized the
wheel was grinding it hard over to get away from us; and so the
steamer fled past, more like a nightmare than a reality, and in a few
minutes was standing with full speed to the norrard, where, in less
than a quarter of an hour, she faded slick out of sight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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