appeared again beside them with exactly the same amount of sail as
Elias's boat; and he began rather to dislike the look of the crew on
board of her. The two men who stood there holding the yard, whose pale
faces he could distinguish under the sou'westers, seemed to him, in the
curious light from the breaking foam, more like corpses than living
beings, and apparently they did not speak a word.

A little to windward he saw once more the high white crest of another
huge wave coming through the dark, and he prepared for it in time. The
boat was laid with her stem in a slanting direction to it, and with as
much sail as she could carry, in order to give her sufficient speed to
cleave it and sail right through it. In it rushed with the roar of a
waterfall; again the boat half heeled over, and when the wave was past
his wife no longer sat at the halliard, and Anton no longer stood
holding the yard--they had both gone overboard.

This time, too, Elias thought he heard the same horrible cries in the
air; but in the midst of them he distinctly heard his wife calling his
name in terror. When he comprehended that she was washed overboard, he
only said: "In Jesus' name!" and then was silent. His inclination was to
follow her, but he felt, too, that he must do what he could to save the
rest of the freight he had on board--namely, Bernt and his two other
sons, the one twelve, the other fourteen, who had baled the boat for a
time, but had now found a place in the stern behind their father.

Bernt now had to mind the sail alone; and he and his father, as far as
was possible, helped one another. Elias dared not let go the tiller, and
he held it firmly with a hand of iron that had long lost feeling from
the strain.