Fate Knocks at the Door

And then It struck. Bedient was sprawled upon the deck. Blood broke from his nostrils and ears; from the little veins in his eyes and forehead. Parts of his body turned black afterward from the mysterious pressure at this moment. He felt he was being born again into another world.... The core of that Thing made of wind smashed the _Truxton_--a smash of air. It was like a thick sodden cushion, large as a battle-ship--hurled out of the North. The men had to breathe it--that seething havoc which tried to twist their souls free. When passages to the lungs were opened, the dreadful compression of the air crushed through, tearing the membrane of throat and nostril.

Water now came over the ship in huge tumbling walls. Bedient slid over the deck, like a bar of soap from an overturned pail--clutching, torn loose, clutching again.... Then the Thing eased to a common hurricane such as men know. Gray flicked into the blackness, a corpse-gray sky, and the ocean