Rasmunsen replied with an idiotic grin. The iron-bound shores were
in a lather of foam, and even down the middle the only hope was to
keep running away from the big seas. To lower sail was to be
overtaken and swamped. Time and again they passed boats pounding
among the rocks, and once they saw one on the edge of the breakers
about to strike. A little craft behind them, with two men, jibed
over and turned bottom up.
"W-w-watch out, old man," cried he of the chattering teeth.
Rasmunsen grinned and tightened his aching grip on the sweep.
Scores of times had the send of the sea caught the big square stern
of the Alma and thrown her off from dead before it till the after
leach of the spritsail fluttered hollowly, and each time, and only
with all his strength, had he forced her back. His grin by then
had become fixed, and it disturbed the correspondents to look at
him.
They roared down past an isolated rock a hundred yards from shore.
From its wave-drenched top a man shrieked wildly, for the instant
cutting the storm with his voice. But the next instant the Alma
was by, and the rock growing a black speck in the troubled froth.
"That settles the Yankee! Where's the sailor?" shouted one of his
passengers.
Rasmunsen shot a glance over his shoulder at a black square-sail.
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