Little good it would have done them to know, either, they
being powerless to change their course, or to make any headway at all,
save as they drifted with the seas. Harriet hoped they might be
drifting toward shore. Instead, they were being slowly carried down
the coast and parallel with it.
At last the gray of the early dawn appeared in the east, but it was a
"high dawn," with the light first appearing high in the sky, meaning
to sailors wind or storm. Harriet did not know the meaning of it,
however, though she thought it a most peculiar looking sky. And now,
as the light came slowly, they were able to get an idea what the sea
in which they had been wallowing all night looked like. It was a
fearsome sight. As they gazed their hearts sank within them. Mountains
of leaden water rose into the air, then sank out of sight again, and
when the "Sue" went into one of those troughs of the sea it was like
sinking into a great black pit from which there was no escape. Yet the
buoyant hull of the sloop rose every time, shaking the water from her
glistening white sides and bending to the oncoming seas preparatory to
taking another dizzy dive.
The lower half of the mast was still standing, a ragged stump, the
deck itself swept clean of every vestige of wreckage and movable
equipment.
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