He sprang to the helm, but the head of the schooner remained immovable in the same direction. Vernon watched the approaching hurricane. His experience told him that it was coming again with redoubled fury. The lightning flashes showed them a glimpse of the storm. Everything was done to save the schooner which experienced seamanship could suggest. "Head her off," cried the captain, "or we shall capsize!" Onward came the hurricane, ploughing up the sea, which boiled and foamed and roared before it, a moving spasm of awful surge. "Look to yourself, captain!" shouted Tempest, and the words died away on the wind just as the wild waters leaped over the deck with the thunderous roar and fury of a cataract. The weather main-chains were wrenched like threads, with all their rigging, from the sides of the vessel; and the main mast, bending like a cane, broke off with a loud crash close to the deck. It was an awful moment. A wild cry arose from the sailors, but it was drowned in the roar of the waters and the thunder of the gale. The lightning flashed and leaped about like phantasmagoric demons, as if mocking the sailors in their frantic dread. "Cut away the foremast--look lively, men!" Lieutenant Tempest had been prepared for this order, and with an ax severed the distended shrouds, which flew wildly in the air, lashing the sea as they fell. The remaining straps parted with sharp reports before the ax descended, and the unsustained mast, after a few vigorous blows by the daring hand of the young officer, snapped off a few feet from the deck. A large wave lifted it like a straw and bore it away to leeward. The _Lively Bee_--a wreck--drifted about on the billows. Captain Vernon almost sobbed as he thought of her. The heavens were as black as raven wings, the lightning played across them in streams of fire, the water was phosphorescently illuminated, while great masses of water, swollen into gigantic billows, burst into glittering foam over the deck. "We are lost," cried Mike. "Holy Mary, have mercy," Zeke blasphemed, and then with all the superstition of his class declared that there was a Jonah aboard. The captain heard him. "What of it?" he cried. "We can't find the Jonah in this storm." "I kin," answered the man. "Perhaps it is yourself, Zeke; I remember we were nearly wrecked off Cape Cod the last time you were with me." Vernon had turned the tables on the man, who now shivered with fear. "Doan't say that, cap'n, or they'll throw me overboard." Zeke had no more to say about Jonahs, and while he blasphemed the others prayed. The storm ceased its anger, the winds were calmed down, the furious billows gradually subsided, and the _Lively Bee_ drifted along as steadily as on a river. When morning came all eyes were strained for a sail. Signals of distress were made, and soon in the far distance an answer was made. A brave-looking ship was seen, and soon a boat was lowered to go to the assistance of the _Lively Bee_.