Sturdy draws closer to the captain, and pointing with one arm ahead, shouts in his ear, "We can't weather it. Our only chance is to keep her away and try to sail between the rocks into the open water beyond."
The captain is about to assent, when a dark figure is seen struggling up through the companion-hatch. He is waving his hands aloft and shouting. But the wind cuts the words short off; they cannot be heard. He rushes now to the bridge-ladder and clutches the rope and shouts again.
Sturdy bends towards him. He catches the words.
"Saved!" he cries, creeping back towards the captain.
Saved? I doubt it. The ship's fore-part even now touches ground, and the waves leap madly over her.
But the screw is revolving at last, and slowly the good ship begins to forge ahead. It is a fight now, and a hard one, betwixt wind and steam, and for a time no one can tell which will be victor.
But, hurrah, science has conquered! The useless sails are taken in, and in less than half an hour the Gurnet is clear, and away from the terrible reef.
* * * * *
There was nothing talked about at breakfast next morning except the danger the ship had come through. But what signifies danger to sailors, especially when it is past? The wind and sea had now gone down, the fires were banked, and all sail was being made for Gibraltar, that impregnable fortress whose splendid story may never all be told, and the possession of which is begrudged to us by almost every civilized nation on the globe.
Britain means to hold it nevertheless, as long at least as she rides mistress of the seas; as long as there floats over us, in sea-fight or in tempest,