Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/155

HOPE REVIVED. 129 CHAPTER XII. HOPE REVIVED. The wind had now incrcased to a hurricane ; it had vecrcd to the south-west, and had attained a velocity little short of nînety miles an hour. On land, the most substantial of érections could wîth difficulty hâve withstood its violence, and a vessel anchored in a roadstead must hâve been torn from its moorings and cast ashore. The mémorable storm that had devastated the Island of Guadaloupe on the 25th of July, 1825, when heavy cannon wcre lifted from their carnages, could scarcely hâve been more furious, and ît was only her mobility before the blast and the solidity of her structure that gave the " Pilgrim " a hope of surviving the tempest A few minutes after the topsail had been lost, the small jib was carried away. Dick Sands contemplated the pos- sibility of throwing out a storm-jib, made of extra strong canvas, as a means of bringing the ship a little more under his control, but abandoned the idca as usclcss. It was, therefore, under bare pôles that the " Pilgrim *' was driven along ; but in spite of the lack of canvas, the hull, masts, ^d rîgging, gave sufficient purchase to the wind, and the progress of the schooncr was prodigiously rapid ; some- times, indeedy she seemcd to be literally lifted from the water, and scudded on, scarcely skîmming its surface. The roUing was fearful. Enormous waves followed in quick succession, and as they travelled faster than the ship, there was the perpétuai risk of one of them catching her astern. Without sail, there were no means of escaping that péril by K