We were drenched to the skin, and had been so all night: we were without food, yet continued to toil at the pumps; which soon, to our great dismay, brought up clear water. The sea having torn away stern-post and rudder, the pumps were our only chance of safety; and the Maltese, encouraged by my example (more than that of their skipper), worked until they were sinking with fatigue. On, on we flew before the sweeping wind, and soon lost sight of
Once more the mountains sank beneath the horizon; and soon nothing but sea and sky were around us, as we flew before the blast into the Gulf of Tarentum, where we were at the mercy of the wind and tide during the whole of that miserable day. The sailors became dejected: three quitted the pumps and betook themselves to prayer, and the leaks gained on us. Four men still continued to toil, exposed to every wave that washed over the defenceless deck, which was then almost level with the ocean; and the planking was so slippery that we were in continual danger of being carried away to leeward.
"The sunless day went down;" night began to darken sea and sky, and we contemplated its approach with gloomy forebodings and absolute horror. The _Santelmo_ now made less way, in consequence of the thoroughly wetted state of her cargo, which buried her to the chain-plates in the water, where she lurched and pitched heavily. When it was dark, the gale increased; not a star was visible, and the dense gloom thickened in every direction around us.
By breaking through a bulk-head, the carpenter contrived to get up a keg of brandy from the forehold, and with a reckless shout the sailors crowded around him. They drank copiously, and the liquor rendered them mad: they yelled and screamed, shaking their clenched hands at the storm in defiance, reviling the Basilian and his candles, and cursing St. Elmo; whose head the carpenter clove with his hatchet.
In the midst of this ghastly merriment, while they were dancing furiously, hand in hand, over the slippery deck, a tremendous sea took us right amidship. I saw it coming on, dark, heaving, and terrible—a roaring mountain of liquid blackness—and embraced the windlass with all the strength with which despair and love of life endued me. In irresistible fury, the stupendous wave rolled its mighty volume over the wreck: when it passed away I was _alone_. It had swept, into the boiling sea, every one of them. A cry came feebly on the bellowing wind, and all was over: I heard only the hiss of the dashing spray, and the plunging of the wreck, as alternately it rose on the crest of a wave, and thundered down into the yawning ocean. I had bound myself securely to the windlass with my sash, and my principal fear was that the water-logged hull might sink; for in such a sea, and when so far from land, swimming would be unavailing.