had their backs towards him, and were well-nigh hidden by the high
heeling hull.

Suddenly a tremendous roller burst upon them. Elias had long caught a
glimpse of its white crest through the darkness, right over the prow
where Bernt sat. It filled the whole boat for a moment, the planks shook
and trembled beneath the weight of it, and then, as the boat, which had
lain half on her beam-ends, righted herself and sped on again, it
streamed off behind to leeward.

While it was still upon him, he fancied he heard a hideous yell from the
other boat; but when it was over, his wife, who sat by the shrouds,
said, with a voice which pierced his very soul: "Good God, Elias! the
sea has carried off Martha and Nils!"--their two youngest children, the
first nine, the second seven years old, who had been sitting in the hold
near Bernt. Elias merely answered: "Don't let go the lines, Karen, or
you'll lose yet more!"

They had now to take in the fourth clew, and, when this was done, Elias
found that it would be well to take in the fifth and last clew too, for
the gale was ever on the increase; but, on the other hand, in order to
keep the boat free of the constantly heavier seas, he dare not lessen
the sail a bit more than he was absolutely obliged to do; but they found
that the scrap of sail they could carry gradually grew less and less.
The sea seethed so that it drove right into their faces, and Bernt and
his next eldest brother Anthony, who had hitherto helped his mother with
the sail-lines, had, at last, to hold in the yards, an expedient one
only resorts to when the boat cannot bear even the last clew--here the
fifth.

The companion boat, which had disappeared in the meantime, now suddenly
ducked up alongside again, with precisely the same amount of sail as
Elias's boat; but he now began to feel that he didn't quite like the
look of the crew on board there. The two who stood and held in the yards
(he caught a glimpse of their pale faces beneath their sou'westers)
seemed to him, by the odd light of the shining foam, more like corpses
than men, nor did they speak a single word.

A little way off to larboard he again caught sight of the high white
back of a fresh roller coming through the dark, and he got ready betimes
to receive it. The boat was laid to with its prow turned aslant towards
the on-rushing wave, while the sail was made as large as possible, so as
to get up speed enough to cleave the heavy sea and sail out of it aga