our line!" The last injunction, delivered through his
hands, went down the wind like a thunder-clap, and the officers on the
steamer's bridge, vainly trying to make themselves heard against the
gale in the same manner, started perceptibly at the impact of sound,
and one went to the engine-room speaking-tube.

Breast to breast the two vessels lifted and fell. At times it seemed
that the ship was to be dropped bodily on the deck of the steamer; at
others, her crew looked up a streaked slope of a hundred feet to where
the other craft was poised at the crest. Then the steamer would drop,
and the next sea would heave the ship toward her. But it was noticeable
that every bound brought her nearer to the steamer, and also farther
ahead, for her sails were doing their work.

"Kick ahead on board the steamer!" thundered Seldom from his eminence.
"Go ahead! Start the wagon, or say your prayers, you blasted idiots!"

The engines were already turning; but it takes time to overcome three
thousand tons of inertia, and before the steamer had forged ahead six
feet the ship had lifted above her, and descended her black side with a
grinding crash of wood against iron. Fore and main channels on the ship
were carried away, leaving all lee rigging slack and useless; lower
braces caught in the steamer's davit-cleats and snapped, but the sails,
held by the weather braces, remained full, and the yards did not swing.
The two craft separated with a roll and came together again with more
scraping and snapping of rigging. Passengers left the rail, dived
indoors, and took refuge on the opposite side, where falling blocks and
small spars might not reach them. Another leap toward the steamer
resulted in the ship's maintopgallantmast falling in a zigzag whirl, as
the snapping gear aloft impeded it; and dropping athwart the steamer's
funnel, it neatly sent the royal-yard with sail attached down the iron
cylinder, where it soon blazed and helped the artificial draft in the
stoke-hold. Next came the foretopgallantmast, which smashed a couple of
boats. Then, as the round black stern of the steamer scraped the lee
bow of the ship, jib-guys parted, and the jib-boom itself went, snapping
at the bowsprit-cap, with the last bite the ship made at the steamer
she was helping. But all through this riot of destruction--while
passengers screamed and prayed, while officers on the steamer shouted
and swore, and Seldom Helward, bellowing insanely, danced up and down