“Slowly the paddles went round, then faster, then the ‘Silver Arrow’ tore through the black waves under a dangerous pressure of steam.
“Hardly had we attained speed ere a great mountain wave struck her amidships, carrying away the larboard paddle-box and the greater portion of the aft bulwarks.
“The boat rocked and plunged, almost stopped, then the wheels crashed through the splintered timbers that had become inserted in the paddles, and again we bore on, until a loud snap echoed through the boat, the wheels stopped, the ‘Silver Arrow,’ caught up by the rushing waters, drifted helplessly.
“The engineer, breathless, came up and said the piston-lever had broken, and still we drifted on—to death.
“Another giant wave struck—three feet of water below, and fast filling—still raged the storm and warred the water.
“Two miles from shore, and the black, ghastly, whitened waves roared over the rocky bar, two hundred yards distant.
“In an instant we were close on it.
“I rushed below, seized the mail bags, and unscrewing the cylinder-head, thrust them in, and closed it up. Then they were in a water-tight compartment, safe and recoverable, even if the luckless ‘Silver Arrow’ went to the bottom.
“As I secured the mails the water was waist high. When I reached deck the waves were beginning to roll over it, and the engineer and negro, whom, it seemed, the terror of the situation had suddenly roused, were launching the remaining boat.
“The starboard boat, I forgot to mention, had been discovered gone when I examined the deck, on recovering from the chloroform’s somnolent effects.