Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/45

him to see the wharves distinctly. But the masts were
overtasked. They bowed as if they still retained the
elastic force with which they had resisted the winds
on their native mountains. They leaned forward as if
they would leave the heavy hulk of the ship far behind
them. But a distinct crackling sound proved they
were overstrained.
  "Stand by with the axes !" brought every sailor to
his post, where all now stood in anxious expectation,
waiting with lifted arms, the next command. A sud-
den crash was heard throughout the ship above the
howling of the tempest and the roaring of the waves,
and the whole rigging fell forward and sunk into the
water, so that the lower broken ends of the masts
pointed upward.
  "Clear away ! for God's sake, clear away !" shouted
the captain to the sailors, who, although the ship by
the first falling of the masts, was buried so deeply in
the water, that it seemed as if it would never rise, now
worked with wonderful dexterity, urged by the con-
sciousness that their lives depended upon the quick and
successful execution of the order. The next moment
the sails and masts, which lately rode so proudly and
bowed so gracefully, lay a loose, confused mass upon
the surface of the sea, and the ship, stripped of her
fairest ornaments, and without the means of guiding
her course, was tossed to and fro, the helpless play-
thing of the waves. From a seemingly animated being
full of grace, courage, and strength, it had now become
a dull, dead hulk, a leaky wreck.
  Under these circumstances, must they whose lives
were now in imminent peril take some decisive step.