As the light became clearer the imminence of their peril grew more distinct. A lofty iron-bound coast rose in front of them, and extended as far as the eye could reach on either hand. The seas broke with terrible force against its base, sending its spray far up on the cliffs.
"Could we bring her about?" Edmund asked the chief of the sailors.
"It would be useless," the man said. "She could not make her way in the teeth of this gale."
"That I see," Edmund said; "but at present we are rushing on to destruction. If we bring her to the wind we may run some distance along the coast before we are driven ashore, and may perceive some spot towards which we may direct her with a chance of making land ere she goes to pieces."
The sail was still further lessened and the ship's head brought round parallel with the coast.
The Dragon laboured tremendously as the sea struck her full on the beam, and every wave flooded her low waist. Each sea which struck her lifted her bodily to leeward, and for every foot she sailed forward she was driven one towards the coast. This was now but three miles distant, and another hour would ensure her destruction; for none there hoped that the anchors, even should they find bottom, could hold her for an instant in the teeth of the gale. Every eye was directed towards the shore, but no break could be seen in the wall of rock which rose almost perpendicularly from the water.
"I fear it is hopeless," Edmund said to Egbert; "the strongest swimmer would be dashed to pieces in an instant against those rocks."
"He would indeed," Egbert replied. "I wish now that we had boldly engaged the four Danish ships. Far better would it have been for us to have died fighting for England on her decks than to have perished here."
The time passed slowly. Every minute the Dragon was swept nearer and nearer towards the rocks.
"She will just make that headland," the master sailor said, "and that is all. Once round it we had best turn her head to the rocks. If the cliffs rise as here sheer from the water, the moment she strikes will be the last for all of us; but if the rocks are, as in some places, piled high at the foot of the cliffs, a few may possibly manage to leap from her forecastle as she strikes and to clamber up."