For a time the wind was fair; but when they had gone two-thirds of the distance it failed them. The boat lay, rocking a little, but with no onward progress, her sails hanging flabby and motionless. Gradually laughter and jest ceased from the lips of the pleasure-seekers.
"A shower coming up," said Sir Temple Dacre, in a tone that he wished to make unconcerned. But it was not a mere shower that threatened, but something more awful in the brassy heavens, the stifling atmosphere, the clouds that had gathered with a swiftness unprecedented in that region. The air seemed to have receded behind the clouds to swell the fury of the tempest that was coming. The stillness was full of horror; it seemed like the uplifting of a weapon to strike. The reticence of the sailors was ominous. This calm had fallen so suddenly that the boat had not been able to reach land, or even water more sheltered. It must meet the full fury of the tempest.
The lightning began to play incessantly. The thunder had a sound of struggle, as if the giant of the skies were breaking his fetters.
At length the listeners heard a sullen roar more prolonged than the tempest, and the wind was upon them. The little vessel shivered and flew before it. It swept past the cove that the sailors had hoped to enter, and bore down with terrible speed toward the rocky coast beyond. The sails had been furled, but the wind and the water needed no aid. The rain came, a blinding deluge; the forked bolts seemed to have set the air on fire; the crash of the thunder and the roar of the wind and the water all mingled together.
The company had scattered. Only a few had gone into the little cabin, the rest preferring to take what small chance the freedom of the deck might give them. With all conventionalities swept away, they were themselves as their companions had never seen them before and never would again. Some were crouched on the deck, with sobs and cries for help; some knelt in silent prayer, and others sat with a stoicism of bearing that their paleness and anxious eyes showed was superficial.
Elizabeth, with an unconquerable desire to meet death upon her feet, stood clinging to the mast. She had thrust her arm through a rope about it, and so could resist the wind which, as she stood, was somewhat broken to her by the mast. Archdale, catching by one thing and another, came toward her. Slipping one arm into the rope, he put the other about her in a firm support.