The noise was deafening, for the shingle and huge stones were being churned over and over, and, as it were, pounded by the waves, while wherever there was a cavern the water rushed in with a bellowing roar that was at times deepened into thunder, while the concussion and force of the hissing water seemed enough to rend the rocks asunder, and plough up the earth beyond, till the current forced its way through, to tear on as a devastating river, and drown all that came in its path.
“What?” I shouted to a fisherman whose lips I had seen move, while his words were swept away.
“Three ships ashore,” he shouted back, in the sing-song tone peculiar to the men of Cornwall, who draw their harvest from the sea,—the sturdy, sober, honest fellows, who seem gentlemen in comparison with the general run of fishermen at our ports and fishing stations,—men whom I had sat upon the rocks to listen to night after night, when a knot would get together and sing in capital tune and time—and with every part in the harmony carefully preserved—some melodious air, which, floating out to sea, sounded sweet beyond conception, and made me think what little need there was for people to go abroad to find scenery and national peculiarity. But it always was a failing among us to be be far-sighted that the beauties of home were overlooked.
“Three ships ashore,” he shouted, pointing in three different directions; but I had already made them out, and now we went down as close to the pier as the waves would permit, for but some fifty yards from the end lay a small schooner with the waves washing over her—one by one the men who had clung to her rigging and sides being beaten off, washed towards the shore, and then drawn back by the under-tow again and again.
Every minute the pier would be left clear out of the water, which poured off its sides, and in one of these intervals a sailor was seen swimming strongly close alongside, riding up and down the huge billows, but fighting hardly for his life.
All at once I saw a man seize a life-buoy, one of those large yellow cork rings; and as the last wave left the stone pier free from water right to where the lighthouse rose, he dashed along it, running swiftly towards where the swimmer was striving to reach the shore.
In a few moments he was beside him, and threw the buoy so that the poor fellow reached it, when the men around me began to shout to the gallant fellow to return. But every shout seemed beaten back instantly; and amidst a violent commotion—men running and seizing ropes, women shrieking and clutching one another—I saw a large wave come tearing in, rise like a huge beast at a leap, and curl right over the pier, sweeping it from end to end, and deluging it with many feet of water. This was succeeded by another and another, and then once more the water was streaming off the stones, and one could see the fisherman who ran to his brother man’s rescue struggling for his own life on the other side of the pier, against which he was at length violently dashed. But there were kinsmen and friends at hand in plenty, and one with a rope round him ran down the pier, plunged in, swam to the poor fellow, clutched him, and then they were drawn ashore together insensible, but locked in a tight embrace.
All this time the sailor who clung to the buoy seemed wild and confused, and ignorant of its purpose, for, all at once a groan rose from the crowd assembled, when loosing his hold, the drowning man threw up his arms and disappeared in the boiling surge.
In rushed the waves again and again, while more than once the yellow life-buoy could be seen; but as the waves receded they dragged it back, and now every eye was directed to the little schooner, which seemed to lift with the waves, and then tremble in every beam as it was dashed down again, till the masts went over the side.
About a hundred yards lower down I could see a crowd of people assembled facing a large brig which had struck amongst the rocks, and whose crew seemed doomed to meet with a watery grave.