In this manner the arm of authority was kept
extended over the silent crew, not with the vain desire to preserve a
lingering though useless exercise of power, but with a view to maintain
that unity of action that now could alone afford them even a ray of
hope.
"She can make no head against this sea, under that rag of canvas," said
Barnstable, gloomily, addressing the cockswain, who, with folded arms
and an air of cool resignation, was balancing his body on the verge of
the quarter-deck, while the schooner was plunging madly into waves that
nearly buried her in their bosom: "the poor little thing trembles like a
frightened child, as she meets the water."
Tom sighed heavily, and shook his head, before he answered:
"If we could have kept the head of the mainmast an hour longer, we might
have got an offing, and fetched to windward of the shoals; but as it is,
sir, mortal man can't drive a craft to windward--she sets bodily in to
land, and will be in the breakers in less than an hour, unless God wills
that the wind shall cease to blow."
"We have no hope left us, but to anchor; our ground tackle may yet bring
her up."
Tom turned to his commander, and replied, solemnly, and with that
assurance of manner that long experience only can give a man in moments
of great danger:
"If our sheet-cable was bent to our heaviest anchor, this sea would
bring it home, though nothing but her launch was riding by it. A
northeaster in the German Ocean must and will blow itself out; nor shall
we get the crown of the gale until the sun falls over the land.
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