One
minute the great structure would rise dizzily, high into the black
blast, a skyscraper flung up on a mountain Madden could look far below
on the lights of the struggling _Vulcan_. Up there the storm yelled
and screamed at every corner and brace of the weltering dock, and
wrenched at the midget helmsman. Then came the sickening drop, down,
down, down, into the profound, and the _Vulcan_ would swing far
above her towering consort. For the instant the storm would be blanketed
by the prodigious waves. Wild, formless ghosts of foam would stretch
wide arms about the falling dock as if they were clasping it into the
lowest crypts of the dead, and the night would be filled with a vast and
dreadful whispering.
For hours it seemed that every ascent, every descent, must mark the end.
But the storm was so terrific, Madden's sense of personal fear was
blotted out in the tremendous conflict about him. Indeed, there was
something deeply moving, almost gratifying in this elemental rage. Then
he discovered that he was taking a part in it. Mechanically he had been
straining and pulling at the wheel to hold those signal lights in line.
Now he realized that his tiny human force formed a third contender in
this vast battle. As he eased the great dock down the rushing sheer of a
wave so the shock would not break the straining cable, he had won a
point over two violent antagonists.
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