These orders were given in rapid succession, and witout a trumpet, for the young man could, at need, speak loud as the tempest.  They were succeeded by one of those exciting and fearful minutes that are so familiar to mariners.  Each man was intent on his duty, while the elements worked their will around him, as madly as if the hand by which they are ordinarily restrained was for ever removed.  The bay was a sheet of foam, while the rushing of the gust resembled the dull rumbling of a thousand chariots.  The ship yielded to the pressure, until the water was seen gushing through her lee-scuppers, and her tall line of masts inclined towards the plane of the bay, as if the ends of the yards were about to dip into the water.  But this was no more than the first submission to the shock.  The well-moulded fabric recovered its balance, and struggled through its element, as if conscious that there was security only in motion.  Ludlow glanced his eye to leeward.  The opening of the Cove was favorably situated, and he caught a glimpse of the spars of the brigantine, rocking violently in the squall.  He spoke to demand if the anchors were clear, and then he was heard, shouting again from his station in the weather gangway—­

“Hard a-weather!—­”

The first efforts of the cruiser to obey her helm, stripped as she was of canvas, were labored and slow.  But when her head began to fall off, the driving scud was scarce swifter than her motion.  At that moment, the sluices of the cloud opened, and a torrent of rain mingled in the uproar, and added to the confusion.  Nothing was now visible but the lines of the falling water, and the sheet of white foam through which the ship was glancing.

“Here is the land, Sir!” bellowed Trysail, from a cat-head, where he stood resembling some venerable sea-god, dripping with his native element.  “We are passing it, like a race-horse!”

“See your bowers clear!” shouted back the captain.

“Ready, Sir, ready—­”

Ludlow motioned to the men at the wheel, to bring the ship to the wind; and when her way was sufficiently deadened, two ponderous anchors dropped, at another signal, into the water.  The vast fabric was not checked without a further and tremendous struggle.  When the bows felt the restraint, the ship swung head to wind, and fathom after fathom of the enormous ropes were extracted, by surges so violent as to cause the hull to quiver to its centre.  But the first lieutenant and Trysail were no novices in their duty, and, in less than a minute, they had secured the vessel steadily at her anchors.  When this important service was performed, officers and crew stood looking at each other, like men who had just made a hazardous and fearful experiment.  The view again opened, and objects on the land became visible through the still falling rain.  The change was like that from night to day.  Men who had passed their lives on the sea drew long and relieving breaths, conscious that the danger was happily passed.  As the more pressing interest of their own situation abated they remembered the object of their search.  All eyes were turned in quest of the smuggler; but, by some inexplicable means, he had disappeared.