not leave hers.

"What is happening?" I shouted in her ear.

"We've lost way," came her answer. "I think we're caught aback! The
wheel's up, but she could not steer!"

The Gabriel voice of the Samurai rang out. "Hard over?" was his
mellow storm-call to the man at the wheel. "Hard over, sir," came
the helmsman's reply, vague, cracked with strain, and smothered.

Came the lightning, before us, behind us, on every side, bathing us
in flaming minutes at a time. And all the while we were deafened by
the unceasing uproar of thunder. It was a weird sight--far aloft the
black skeleton of spars and masts from which the sails had been
removed; lower down, the sailors clinging like monstrous bugs as they
passed the gaskets and furled; beneath them the few set sails, filled
backward against the masts, gleaming whitely, wickedly, evilly, in
the fearful illumination; and, at the bottom, the deck and bridge and
houses of the Elsinore, and a tangled riff-raff of flying ropes, and
clumps and bunches of swaying, pulling, hauling, human creatures.

It was a great moment, the master's moment--caught all aback with all
our bulk and tonnage and infinitude of gear, and our heaven-aspiring
masts two hundred feet above our heads. And our master was there, in
sheeting flame, slender, casual, imperturbable, with two men--one of
them a murderer--under him to pass on and enforce his will, and with
a horde of inefficients and weaklings to obey that will, and pull,
and haul, and by the sheer leverages of physics manipulate our
floating world so that it would endure this fury of the elements.