Slow Signal Fade ebooks

Joaquim leapt ashore through the drowning spray
with a strong pole, and tried to pass the cuberta round a small
projecting point, while we on deck aided in keeping her off and
lengthened the cable. We succeeded in getting free, and the
stout-built boat fell off into the strong current farther away
from the shore, Joaquim swinging himself dexterously aboard by
the bowsprit as it passed the point. It was fortunate for us that
he happened to be on a sloping clayey bank where there was no
fear of falling trees; a few yards farther on, where the shore
was perpendicular and formed of crumbly earth, large portions of
loose soil, with all their superincumbent mass of forest, were
being washed away; the uproar thus occasioned adding to the
horrors of the storm.
The violence of the wind abated in the course of an hour, but the
deluge of rain continued until about three o'clock in the
morning; the sky was lighted up by almost incessant flashes of
pallid lightning, and the thunder pealing from side to side
without interruption.


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