Recovering her equilibrium, the ship started through the brine,
and as the succeeding roller came on, she was urging ahead fast. Still,
the sea struck her abeam, forcing her bodily to leeward, and heaving the
lower yardarms into the ocean. Tons of water fell on her decks, with the
dull sound of the clod on the coffin. At this grand moment, old Jack
Truck, who was standing in the rigging, dripping with he spray, that had
washed over him, with a naked head, and his grey hair glistening, shouted
like a Stentor, "Haul in your fore-braces, boys! away with the yard, like
a fiddlestick!" Every nerve was strained; the unwilling yards, pressed
upon by an almost irresistible column of air, yielded slowly, and as the
sail met the gale more perpendicularly, or at right angles to its surface,
it dragged the vast hull through the sea with a power equal to that of a
steam-engine. Ere another sea could follow, the Montauk was glancing
through the ocean at a furious rate, and though offering her quarter to
the billows, their force was now so much diminished by her own velocity,
as to deprive them of their principal danger.
The motion of the ship immediately became easy, though her situation was
still far from being without risk. No longer compelled to buffet the
waves, but sliding along in their company, the motion ceased to disturb
the systems of the passengers, and ten minutes had not elapsed before most
of them were again on deck, seeking the relief of the open air.
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