It was true; steady, swift, undeviating, the vessel headed through the fleet. She did not drift nor wander nor hesitate. She sailed as if the helmsman, with set teeth, were saying,
"By God! If I must die on the rocks, I'll go to my death the captain of my vessel!"
And so, with wheel in his hand and epic oaths in his mouth, he sailed directly into the long row of spiles, over which the waves ran like hell-hounds; where half a score of wrecks lay already churning into fragments in the awful tumult.
The sailing vessel seemed not to waver, nor seek nor dodge—seemed rather to choose the most deadly battle-place of waves and wall.
"God! but that's magnificent of him!" Mason said to himself.
Rose held her breath, her face white and set with horror.
"O must he die?"
"There is no hope for him. She will strike in a moment—she strikes!—she is gone!"
The vessel entered the grey confusion of the breakers and struck the piles like a battering ram; the waves buried her from sight; then the recoil flung her back; for the first time she swung broadside to the storm. The work of the helmsman was over. She reeled—resisted an instant, then submitted to her fate, crumbled against the pitiless wall like paper and thereafter was lost to sight.
This dramatic and terrible scene had held the attention of the onlookers—once more they searched for the tiny raft. It was nearing the lake wall at another furious point of contact. An innumerable crowd spread like a black robe over the shore waiting to see the tiny float strike.