Explore "A Son of the Sea" by John Arthur Barry on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
SUDDENLY, during the last hour of the middle watch, the wind which had blown so long and so steadily either on the quarter or right aft, hauled abeam, and thence dead ahead, hardening into a gale before Mr Sinclair could even get his yards braced for'ard. And presently, the Andromeda began, with so much sail upon her, to make tremendously bad weather of it. Foresail, mainsail, and upper topsails must come off her or the masts must go. Already the tough Kauri pine sticks were buckling like fishing rods, whilst big seas in ceaseless procession broke high above her bows and rolled six feet deep to the saloon doors, and over them, swamping the whole place for the second time that passage.
In the forecastle the men lay in their bunks smoking, and staring stolidly at the bubbling seething water as it flowed in and out. Here the din and riot were indescribable as the ship lifted her bows to the shock of the waves that made her reel and stagger as they hit her, first on one side then on the other, or bounded over her in foaming cascades of greenness, whilst she buried herself until she hid the clew of the foretopmast staysail.