Человек, который смеется / The Man Who Laughs. Уровень 4

The vessel drifted like a cork at the mercy of the waves. It sailed no longer – it merely floated, like a dead fish.

One of the women, the Irishwoman, told her beads[18 - told her beads – перебирала чётки] wildly. They neared the cliff. They were about to strike. The wave dashed the boat against the rock. Then came the shock. Nothing remained but the abyss.

But suddenly something terrible appeared to them in the darkness. On the port bow arose, standing stark, a tall, opaque mass, vertical a tower of the abyss.

They watched it open-mouthed.

The storm was driving them towards it. They knew not what it was. It was the rock.

It was a moment of great anxiety. Meanwhile a thickening mist had descended on the drifting wretches. They were ignorant of their whereabouts.

Suddenly the boat was driven back. The wave reared up under the vessel. It was again on the open sea.

The hurricane had stopped. The fierce clarions of space were mute. None knew what had become of it; flakes replaced the hailstones, the snow began to fall slowly.

No more swell: the sea flattened down. In a few minutes the boat was floating in sleeping waters.

All was silence, stillness, blindness. It was clear that they were delivered out of the storm, out of the foam, out of the wind, out of the uproar. In three or four hours it would be sunrise. Some passing ship would see them; they would be rescued. The worst was over. They said to themselves, “It is all over this time.”

Suddenly they found that all was indeed over.

One of the sailors, went down into the hold to look for a rope, then came above again and said, -

“The hold is full[19 - The hold is full. – Трюм полон.].”

“Of what?” asked the chief.

“Of water,” answered the sailor.

The chief cried out, -

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” replied the captain, “that in half an hour we shall founder.”

THE LAST RESOURCE

There was a hole in the keel. When it happened no one could have said.

It was most probable that they had touched some rock. The other sailor, whose name was Ave Maria, went down into the hold, too, came on deck again, and said, -

“There are two varas of water in the hold.”

About six feet.

Ave Maria added, “In less than forty minutes we shall sink.”

The water, however, was not rising very fast.

The chief called out,

“We must work the pump.”

“We have no pump left.