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rustling in sails.   He heard the bow slicing through the calm water.   And as he ever so gently began to doze off in the darkness of the warm, night breeze, he heard the firing of a distant cannon. He awoke with a start. Something struck his face.   It was a single drop of rain.
              Ten o’clock arrived, and Arthur shouted, "Bearing ought-eight-ought!"   He saw the Helmsman preparing to step aside as the Captain put on his rawhide gloves.   The two shrugged again, this time looking around the sky.   The rain began as a sprinkle.   A few sailors kicked at their weather gear, like children poking peas on a plate.   Instead they focused on readying the sails for the turn.
              The Captain cried out across the deck to the First Mate, "Prepare to mark the turn!"
              The First Mate yelled back, "Prepare to mark the turn, aye."
              Jubilantly, Arthur exclaimed, "Bearing ought-nine-ought!"   The boat was now near the bottom of the Earth, at a ninety-degree angle to the tip of The Horn. A fitting place it was for the hellish events about to unfold.
              The Captain stepped in to take the helm.   He cried out, "Mark!"
              The First Mate yelled out, "Mark!"
              The starboard crew laid hard into the lines and the sails roared in protest as the masts groaned.   The Captain arrested the wheel and wrestled it to leeward.   He leaned into the helm, calves straining, as the ship lurched and crackled loudly.   The ropes sang and the hull hummed, while the keel drummed on the choppy swells.   The rain joined the wind as they played the sails and pummeled the deck.
    Suddenly, the wind shifted violently.   It seemed to blow straight down out of the sky, cascading heavily like a waterfall; and along with it came a torrent of water. The term rain would not apply, as there was an absence of any space between the droplets.   What fell that night onto the deck of The Elizabeth could only be described as solid streams, like gutter spill, of cold stinging water.   Before the sailors could set the lines, the weather followed its dramatic entrance onto the stage by performing a devastating duet with the wind that had suddenly decided to dance sideways to the frantic concerto.   The ropes were ripped from the raw hands of the riggers, the sail sheets were rented, and the boom slammed into the stay. The shudder of the impact threw the Captain from his precarious stance.   The wheel spun from his hands, causing the ship to pitch and tilt over in the opposite direction, all in one heaving sway.   Many of the crew were thrown to the deck, and the rest were blown and scattered about.   The sails flailed and flapped untied, tearing to tatters, as the lines whipped about in the wicked wind.  
    The lightning began, giving the ghastly-lit ship the look of an eerie, angry Medusa.   The Captain righted the ship as the sailors scrambled to secure the sails. He struggled to steer without the sheets.   The swells rose higher.   With the ship turned away from the current, the large waves hit the bow at odd angles and bad times.   The mountains of water were enormous, and swift enough to lift the ship high. They came one after the other, before the boat could settle again.   The crew felt the awesome sensation of the ship climbing high into the air, followed by the sickening plunge and jarring hit as the bottom of the boat slammed into the valley floor of hard seawater below.   The crew rode the rolling humps of the rampaging sea serpent, while walls of water walked across the deck, marching to the thunder as troops to war.   The phantom forces brutishly tipped the ship to one side as they clamored aboard, exiting rudely as they leapt over the opposite rail like liquid lemmings.
    The battle raged on for nearly two hours around the drenched and defeated sailors. The squall’s last assault came shortly after Midnight.   As the wind