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The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad
page 83 of 212 (39%)
the point is that this impression resumes in its intensity the
whole recollection of days and days of desperately dangerous
weather. We were then, for reasons which it is not worth while to
specify, in the close neighbourhood of Kerguelen Land; and now,
when I open an atlas and look at the tiny dots on the map of the
Southern Ocean, I see as if engraved upon the paper the enraged
physiognomy of that gale.

Another, strangely, recalls a silent man. And yet it was not din
that was wanting; in fact, it was terrific. That one was a gale
that came upon the ship swiftly, like a parnpero, which last is a
very sudden wind indeed. Before we knew very well what was coming
all the sails we had set had burst; the furled ones were blowing
loose, ropes flying, sea hissing--it hissed tremendously--wind
howling, and the ship lying on her side, so that half of the crew
were swimming and the other half clawing desperately at whatever
came to hand, according to the side of the deck each man had been
caught on by the catastrophe, either to leeward or to windward.
The shouting I need not mention--it was the merest drop in an ocean
of noise--and yet the character of the gale seems contained in the
recollection of one small, not particularly impressive, sallow man
without a cap and with a very still face. Captain Jones--let us
call him Jones--had been caught unawares. Two orders he had given
at the first sign of an utterly unforeseen onset; after that the
magnitude of his mistake seemed to have overwhelmed him. We were
doing what was needed and feasible. The ship behaved well. Of
course, it was some time before we could pause in our fierce and
laborious exertions; but all through the work, the excitement, the
uproar, and some dismay, we were aware of this silent little man at
the break of the poop, perfectly motionless, soundless, and often
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