Australian Tales - Setis

fore sheet aft! Port the helm!”
It was a critical time, and a month's anxiety seemed to be concentrated
into those few minutes. The vessel slowly paid off, and floundered into
the trough of the sea, where a huge mountain of water rose on our port
beam, as if about to fall on us and crush us.
“Hold on, Boomerang! here's a sea coming on board!” cried the
captain. I held on instinctively, while I commended my soul to my
Maker. The heavy combing wave came hissing towards us, and struck
our port paddle-box; the vessel lurched violently over on her beam ends,
and some of the cargo rolled overboard. I thought of my loved ones at
home; I muttered a prayer for them, and I bade the world good-bye. In
another moment I heard the captain shout, “All right! all right!” and I
whispered, “Thank God!” The sea did not break on board; and soon
afterwards we anchored in Pitt Water.
“There you see, I've saved my deck load again, Mr. Boomerang,” said
the captain, rubbing his hands with glee, after the last of the cable was
paid out. “It's a blessed good job we are safe and sound in here, but we
had a narrow escape in rounding to, and I made sure that big topper of a
sea was going to swamp us altogether.” Then he called to his mate,
“Hoy! Mr. Keel, get a lantern and see what's the matter with that horse; I
think he's griped.”
A light was procured, and Mr. Bang's horse was found with his fore
legs over the rail and his hind legs stretched apart on the deck. It was
supposed that when the vessel had given the heavy lurch, the poor beast
had tumbled halfway overboard; and in his struggle to right himself, he
had received some serious internal injury, for he was dead. Several of the
pigs were dead too, and all the deck cargo was more or less damaged.
* * * * *
“What would have been the probable result if that heavy sea had
tumbled broadside on us?” I asked the captain, as he was sitting at the
supper table, an hour afterwards, looking as composed as if he had just
come from church.
He shut his eyes, drew down his features, and laconically replied,
“Down among the dead men.”
“That is precisely my opinion, captain,” said I, as I instantly interpreted
his ominous gesticulation. “It would have been too late to throw your
deck cargo overboard, and we should have gone to the bottom of the sea.
Well, thank God, we are safe,” I added, solemnly. “But had we capsized;
with my last breath I should have denounced deck loads, and it is very
likely that my ghost would have hence-forward been seen, in the wake of
overladen steamers, screaming ‘Murder!’ ”