The life and work of St. Paul

568 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
by no means easy.
The boat, which they had so securely towed astern in what
they meant to be a sort of gala trip to Port Phoenix, had now been hurled after
them through twenty miles of their swirling wake, and must therefore have
been sorely battered, and perhaps half water-logged; and though they were
now in slightly smoother water, yet such was the violence of the gale that it
was difficult to perform the simplest duty. They managed, however aud
Luke was one of those who lent a hand in doing it 1 to heave the boat on board
and then the sailors proceeded to
as a last resource in the moment of peril ;
adopt the rough and clumsy method in use among the ancients to keep a vessel
together. This consisted in undergirding, or, to use the modern and technical
term for a practice which is now but rarely resorted to, in f
'/rapping" it, by
passing stout hawsers several times under the prow, and tying them as tightly
as possible round the middle of the vessel. 2
They had thus met the two most
pressing dangers, but a third remained. There was no place into which they
eould run for shelter, nor could they long avail themselves of the partial pro-
tection which they derived from the weather-shore of the little island, and they
knew too well that the wind was driving them straight towards the Goodwin
Sands of the Mediterranean the dreaded bay of the Greater Syrtis. 3 There
was only one way to save themselves, which was not, as the English Version
most erroneously expresses it, to "strike sail and so be driven" since this
would be certain destruction but to lie to, by rounding the prow of the vessel
on the starboard tack as near to the wind as possible, to send down the topsail
and cordage, lower the ponderous yard to such a height as would leave enough
of the huge mainsail to steady the vessel,* set the artemo, or storm-sail, and
so having made all as snug as their circumstances permitted let her drift
on, broadside to leeward, at the mercy of wind and wave. This they did, and
so ended the miserable day, which had begun with such soft breezes and presumptuous
hopes. 6
All night long the storm blew, and, in spite of the undergirding, the vessel
still leaked. Next day, therefore, they kept throwing over from time to time
everything that could possibly be spared to lighten the '
ship ; but even this
was insufficient. The next night brought no relief; the vessel still leaked
and leaked, and all labour at the pumps was in vain. The fate which most
1 The narrative of St. Luke is admirably brief and pregnant, and yet we can at once
trace in it the tasks in which he and St. Paul and other passengers or prisoners were able
to take their share. They helped, for instance, in getting hold of the boat (ver. 16), and
in lightening the vessel (ver. 19, leg. tpptyanw) ; but they could not help in such technical
tasks as f rapping the vessel, heaving the lead, dropping the anchors, &c.
1 vvofrnara, mitrae, Vitruv. x. 15, 6 ; Thuc. i. 29 ; Plato, Rep. x. 616 ; Hor. Od. i. 14,
8. "They [a Spanish man-of-war in a storm] were obliged to throw overboard all their
upper-deck guns, and take six turns of the cable round the ship to prevent her opening"
(Anson, Voyage Round the World). The Albion was frapped with iron chains after the
battle of Navarino.
1 Ver. 17, jrVw