Read "A List To Starboard" by Francis Hopkinson Smith online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Luncheon over, the passengers, many of whom had been continuously in their berths, began to crowd the decks. These soon discovered that the ship was not on an even keel; a fact confirmed when attention was called to the slant of the steamer chairs and the roll of an orange toward the scuppers. Explanation was offered by the Texan, who argued that the wind had hauled, and being then abeam had given her a list to starboard. This, while not wholly satisfactory to the more experienced, allayed the fears of the women -- there were two or three on board beside the widow -- who welcomed the respite from the wrench and stagger of the previous hours.
Attention was now drawn by a nervous passenger to a gang of sailors under the First Officer, who were at work overhauling the boats on the forward deck, immediately under the eyes of the Captain who had returned to the bridge, as well as to an approaching wall of fog which, while he was speaking, had blanketed the ship, sending two of the boat gang on a run to the bow. The fog-horn also blew continuously, almost without intermission. Now and then it too would give three short, sharp snorts, as if of warning.