Read "The Dust of Conflict" by Harold Bindloss online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
IT was blowing a moderate gale, and the "Aurania," steaming at full speed into it, rolled viciously. A half-moon shone out low down beneath wisps of whirling cloud, and the big black seas shook their frothing crests high aloft against the silvery light as they swept in long succession out of the night. The steamer met them with dipping forecastle from which the spray blew aft in clouds, lurched and hove her streaming bows high above the froth, rolled until one rail seemed level with the sea, and slid down into the hollow, out of which her head swung slowly up to meet the onslaught of the next. Bitter spray was flying everywhere, her decks ran water; but it was only between foremast and forecastle head she shipped it in cascades, and little groups of passengers stood where they could find shelter.
They had finished their dinner with some difficulty, and because the vessel rolled so that it was not an easy task to keep one's seat or footing had found their attempts to amuse themselves below a waste of effort.