ght be, threshing through those
awful seas hour after hour, buried almost, sometimes, in the seething
cauldron, or struck by tons of solid water when some huge mountain of a
wave, toppling to its fall, rushed at her out of the blackness. From
minute to minute the men never knew but that the next roaring billow
would engulf them also, as already they had seen it roll over and
swallow up their neighbours.

It was the skipper of the _White Star_ that told afterwards how, before
the tornado burst--as some said, "like a clap of thunder"--the first
thing to take his attention from the shooting of his lines was boats on
the weather side of him hurriedly shortening sail, or letting all run.
To the nor'ard, from horizon almost to zenith, already the sky was black
as ink, the sea beneath white with flying spume. Then like magic the sea
got up, and the _White Star_ turned to run for Eyemouth, with the
_Myrtle_ in company. But darkness and the fierce turmoil of waters
forced them to lay to in order to make certain of their position. As
they lay, pitching fearfully and many times almost on their beam ends
from the violence of the wind, a foaming mountain of water came
thundering down on the _White Star_, so that for a brief moment all
thought that she was gone; and almost as she shook herself free, just
such another tremendous wave struck the _Myrtle_, and rolled her over
like a walnut-shell skiff, a child's plaything. As the _White Star_ rose
on successive waves, her crew twice afterwards saw the _Myrtle_ heave up
her side for a second ere she went to the bottom, but of her seven
hands no man was ever seen again. Head-reaching into the wind, the
_White Star_ gradually made her perilous way, presently passing yet
another boat floating bottom up, her rigging trailing in the water
around her, but no bodies visible anywhere. Of the rest of the fleet, no
sign. Four and forty hours later the _White Star_ reached safety at
North Shields. Other boats that also headed for the open sea were even
longer in coming to port, but all, as they drew farther and farther from
land, found weather less terrible, a sea less dangerous, than that from
which by the skin of their teeth they had escaped. Some of the smitten
craft drove far to the south before the wind, and after escapes many and
incredible, reached a haven of safety, with men worn and dazed, but not
all with crews complete; too many paid toll to the sea with one or more
lives. For as long as