n a
simoom. At other times it levelled the tops of scores of waves at once,
crushing and kneading them by the immense force that lay in its swiftness.

It would not be looked in the face; it blinded the eyes that strove to
search it; it seemed to flap and beat them with harsh, churlish wings; it
was as full of insult as the billows. Its cry was not multitudinous like
that of the sea, but one and incessant and invariable, a long scream that
almost hissed. On reaching the wreck, however, this shriek became hoarse
with rage, and howled as it shook the rigging. It used the shrouds and
stays of the still upright mainmast as an aeolian harp from which to draw
horrible music. It made the tense ropes tremble and thrill, and tortured
the spars until they wailed a death-song. Its force as felt by the
shipwrecked ones was astonishing; it beat them about as if it were a sea,
and bruised them against the shrouds and bulwarks; it asserted its mastery
over them with the long-drawn cruelty of a tiger.

Just around the wreck the tumult of both wind and sea was of course more
horrible than anywhere else. These enemies were infuriated by the
sluggishness of the disabled hulk; they treated it as Indians treat a
captive who cannot keep up with their march; they belabored it with blows
and insulted it with howls. The brig, constantly tossed and dropped and
shoved, was never still for an instant. It rolled heavily and somewhat
slowly, but with perpetual jerks and jars, shuddering at every concussion.
Its only regularity of movement lay in this, that the force of the wind
and direction of the waves kept it larboard side on, drifting steadily
toward the land.

One moment it was on a lofty crest, seeming as if it would be hurled into
air. The next it was rolling in the trough of the sea, between a wave
which hoarsely threatened to engulf it, and another which rushed seething
and hissing from beneath the keel. The deck stood mostly at a steep angle,
the weather bulwarks being at a considerable elevation, and the lee ones
dipping the surges. Against this helpless and partially water-logged mass
the combers rushed incessantly, hiding it every few seconds with sheets of
spray, and often sweeping it with deluges. Around the stern and bow the
rush of bubbling, roaring whirls was uninterrupted.

The motion was sickly and dismaying, like the throes of one who is dying.
It could not be trusted; it dropped away under the feet traitorously;
then, by an