Close by the rudder-post stood Cigole, looking with all the rest at the gathering storm. His face was only half turned, and as usual he watched this with only a furtive glance, for at times his stealthy eyes turned toward Brandon; and he alone of all on board did not seem to be absorbed by some overmastering thought.
Suddenly a faint, fluttering ripple appeared to the southward; it came quickly: it seemed to flash over the waters; with the speed of the wind it moved on, till a quick, fresh blast struck the ship and sighed through the rigging. Then a faint breathing of wind succeeded; but far away there rose a low moan like that which arises from some vast cataract at a great distance, whose roar, subdued by distance, sounds faintly, yet warningly, to the ear.
At this first touch of the tempest, and the menacing voice of its approach, not a word was spoken, but all stood mute. Brandon alone appeared not to have noticed it. He still stood with folded arms and absorbed air, gazing at the island.
The roar of the waters in the distance grew louder, and in the direction from which it came the dark water was all white with foam, and the boiling flood advanced nearer in myriad-numbered waves, which seemed now like an army rushing to the charge, tossing on high its crested heads and its countless foam-plumes, and threatening to bear down all before it.
At the fierce blast of the storm the ship rolled far over, the masts creaked and groaned, the waves rushed up and dashed against the side.
At that instant Cigole darted quickly toward Brandon, and the moment that the vessel yielded to the blow of the storm he fell violently against him. Before Brandon had noticed the storm or had time to steady himself he had pushed him headlong over the rail and helplessly into the sea--
"--liquidae projecit in undas Praecipitem."
Cigole clung to the rail, and instantly shrieked out:
The startling cry rang through the ship. The captain turned round with a face of agony.
"Man overboard!" shouted Cigole again. "Help! It's Brandon!"
"Brandon!" cried the captain. "He's lost! O God!"
He took up a hen-coop from its fastenings and flung it into the sea, and a couple of pails after it.
He then looked aloft and to the south with eyes of despair. He could do nothing. For now the storm was upon them, and the ship was plunging furiously through the waters with the speed of a race-horse at the touch of the gale. On the lee-side lay the sand-bank, now only three miles away, whose unknown shallows made their present position perilous in the extreme. The ship could not turn to try and save the lost passenger; it was only by keeping straight on that there was any hope of avoiding that lee-shore.