This repeated failure was disheartening. The tide was rising rapidly; every minute was worth a human life, and it began to look as though, in spite of all effort, the poor souls clinging to the wreck would be swept into eternity before the Seamew’s crew could effect a communication with them.
“Let’s have one more try, boys,” exhorted old Bill; “and if we misses her this time we shall have to shift our ground and trust to our own anchor and chain to hold us until we can get ’em off.”
Risky work that would be, as each man there told himself; but none thought of expressing such a sentiment aloud, preferring to take the risk rather than abandon those poor souls to their fate.
The line and keg were rapidly hauled on board the smack once more, and Bill was standing aft by the taffrail watching for a favourable moment at which to make another cast, when Bob exclaimed excitedly—
“’Vast heavin’, father; ’taint no use tryin’ that dodge any more—we’re too far to leeward. Cast off the line and take a turn with it round my waist; I’m goin’ to try to swim it. I know I can do it, dad; and it’s the only way as we can do any good.”
The old man stared aghast at the lad for a moment, then he glanced at the mad swirl of broken water astern, then back once more to Bob, who, in the meantime, was rapidly divesting himself of his clothing.
“God bless ye, boy, for the thought,” he at length ejaculated; “God bless ye, but it ain’t possible. Even if the water was warm the breaking seas ’d smother ye; but bitter cold as ’tis you wouldn’t swim a dozen yards. No, no, Bob, my lad, put on your duds again; we must try sum’at else.”
But Bob had by this time disencumbered himself of everything save a woollen under-shirt and drawers; and now, instead of doing his adopted father’s bidding, he rapidly cast off the line from the keg, and, making a bowline in the end, passed it over one shoulder and underneath the other arm. The next instant he had poised himself lightly upon the taffrail of the wildly tossing smack, and, a mighty breaker sweeping by, with comparatively smooth water behind it, without a moment’s hesitation thence plunged head-foremost into the icy sea.
The broken water leaped and tossed wildly, as if in exultation, over the spot where the brave lad had disappeared; while all hands—both those on board the smack and the people on the wreck—waited breathlessly for his reappearance on the surface. An endless time it seemed to all; and but for the rapid passage of the thin light line out over the smack’s taffrail, indicating that Bob was swimming swiftly under water, old Bill Maskell would have dreaded some dreadful mishap to his protégé; but at last a small round dark object appeared in bold relief in the midst of a sheet of foam, which gleamed dazzling white in the clear cold light of the moon.