"The squall burst into our wet topsails as loud as the thunder, with a flash almost like the lightning itself, taking us broad abeam; the ship groaned and shook for a minute ere gathering way and falling off, and when she rose and began to go plunging through the black surges no brig was to be seen: every man on deck let his breath out almost in a cry, scarce feeling as yet but it was equal to losing sight for ever of our late shipmates, or the least hope of them. The passengers, ladies and all, crowded in the companion-hatch in absolute terror, every face aghast, without thinking of the rain and spray; now and then the sulky crest of a bigger wave would be caught sight of beyond the bulwarks, as the sea rose with its green back curling over into white; and you'd have said the shudder ran down into the cabin, at thought of seeing one or other of the lost boat's crew come weltering up from the mist and vanish again. I knew it was of no use, but I held on in the weather mizzen-rigging, and looked out to westward, against a wild break of light which the setting sun made through the troughs of the sea; once and again I could fancy I saw the boat lift keel up, far off betwixt me and the fierce glimmer. "'Oh, do you see them? _do_ you not see it yet?' was passed up to me over and over, from one sharp-pitched voice to another; but all I could answer was to shake my head. At last, one by one, they went below; and after what had happened, I must say I could easily fancy what a chill, dreary-like, awful notion of the sea must have come for the first time on a landsman, not to speak of delicate young girls fresh from home, at sight of the drenched quarter-deck leaning bare down to leeward, the sleet and spray battering bleak against the round-house doors, where I had seen Miss Hyde led sobbing in, with her wet hair about her face; then the ship driving off from where she had lost them, with her three strong lower masts aslant into the gale, ghastly-white and dripping--her soaked sheets of canvas blown grey and stiff into the rigging, and _it_ strained taut as iron; while you saw little of her higher than the tops, as the scud and the dark together closed aloft. Poor Miss Fortescue's mother was in fits below in her berth--the two watches were on the yards aloft, where no eye could see them, struggling hard to furl and reef; so altogether it was a gloomy enough moment. I stayed awhile on deck, wrapped in a pea-coat, keeping my feet and hanging on, and thinking how right down in earnest matters _could_ turn of a sudden. I wasn't remarkably thoughtful in these days, I daresay, but there did I keep, straining my eyes into the mist to see, I couldn't tell what, and repeating over and over again to myself these few words out of the Prayer-book, 'In the midst of life we are in death,' though scarce knowing what I said. CHAPTER X