Pandemonium had erupted as sailors raced up the ratlines and soldiers loudly scurried to rails, the capstan, windlass—anything they could grasp. “Get your men up,” Lewis shouted at the lieutenants still standing by while he looked to the west. If they were turning away from it, that had to be the direction of the threat—where those malevolent clouds had been. At first he saw nothing in the near-total blackness, then jagged ribbons of lightning rushed all across the horizon, lacing through the sky like thousands of silvery capillaries on some monstrous, greenish-black eye. More lighting, almost
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