The men in the rigging could be seen plainly now. There was no
excitement. They kept very still, watching the futile efforts of the
life-savers, waving their hands occasionally as though in token of
their thanks and their knowledge of the utter futility of human
efforts. No, there was no excitement; the uncertainty that breeds that
was lacking. Fate was simply clamping its damp hand down over those
men. Such things are always quiet--there is nothing to thrill the
heart or stir the soul in them. It is just a mighty thing dealing
death to weaklings, that is all. And we wonder whether the All-seeing
Eye does not sometimes close in sheer pity, to shut out the inequality
of it.
While they looked, a venomous wave got under the bow and lifted it
high. Then down it went as a man would crash his palms together,
bursting out the forepeak like a rotten apple. Thus weakened forward,
the loss of the foremast was an imminent certainty. And there were two
men in the fore rigging! Captain Ephraim leaned far out from the
mainmast; the tug men could see him plainly as he pointed at the
tottering mast and then at the deck.
"He wants them to leave the mast and go into the mainmast," cried
Mulhatton.
"But they won't--see, they are shaking their heads 'no,'" shouted Dan.
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