Waxel ordered the rope cut, but
the Chukchee interpreter called out pitifully to be saved. Quick as
flash, the Russians fired two muskets in midair. At the crash that
echoed among the cliffs, the Indians fell prostrate with fear, and the
interpreter escaped; but six days had been wasted in this futile visit
to the natives.
Scarcely had they escaped this island, when such a hurricane broke over
the _St. Peter_ for seventeen days that the ship could only scud under
bare poles before a tornado wind that seemed to be driving
north-northwest. The ship was a chip in a maelstrom. There were only
fifteen casks of water fit to drink. All food was exhausted but mouldy
sea-biscuits. One sailor a day was now dying of scurvy, and those left
were so weak that they had no power to man the ship. The sailors were
so emaciated they had to be carried back and forward to the rudder, and
the underling officers were quarrelling among themselves. The crew
dared not hoist sails, because not a man of the _St. Peter_ had the
physical strength to climb and lower canvas.[14]
{33} The rain turned to sleet.
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