Rounding Cape Horn, and Other Sea Stories

This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler
By Walter McRoberts.
Illustrated by Grant Wright .
“ Roll on , thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin — his control Stops with the shore .”
PEORIA, ILL. H. S. Hill Printing Company. 1895
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1894, BY WALTER MCROBERTS, In the office of the Librarian, at Washington.

Captain Litchfield, the keeper of the station, was in the observatory, whose windows commanded a view of the ocean and beach for a long distance in either direction. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of the lighthouse two miles to the north, but the cheerful beacon was rendered dim by the snow which filled the air, and was invisible much of the time. As a violent gust beat against the frosty panes and shook the stout building, the keeper thought of the Peruvian , and other good ships that had met their fate on the Massachusetts coast during just such nights as this. He had doubled the beach patrol and now strained his eyes in momentary expectation of seeing the signal to all that coast that a disaster had occurred. It is a thrilling time—waiting and watching to hear the news of a wreck that is certain to take place; striving to locate the doomed craft in the profound darkness out at sea; hoping against hope that some miracle may avert the impending catastrophe!
Just at dusk that evening, the men at Fourth Cliff Station (a few miles to the south) had sighted a large brig close-hauled and struggling northward under storm sails. The blinding storm had apparently prevented those on board from seeing how perilously near they were to land, but they soon after discovered their danger, for more sail was clapped on the vessel—much more than she could safely carry—and she tore through the water at a great rate, in a desperate endeavor to drive past the outlying rocks and shoals off Scituate and Cohasset. The attempt might have succeeded had it not been for the fearful leeway the craft was making, but it seemed as though every cable’s length she advanced brought her perceptibly nearer to the beach.