So anxious did I at last become, that I was on the point of resigning the helm to Bob, that I might go below to consult the chart, and ascertain as nearly as I could our exact position, when suddenly, directly ahead, appeared a wild waste of boiling foaming surf, swirling, seething, and leaping high in the air, where it became instantly dissipated in the form of a dense driving mist.
I glanced wildly to port and to starboard, vainly hoping I should see clear unbroken water on one side or the other, though we were already too near the breakers to escape them. But far as the eye could penetrate the dense atmosphere on either side, stretched the remorseless breakers, and in another minute we were among them.
On first catching sight of the broken water, I had pointed to the companion in which Ella still stood; and Bob, seeing the action, caught my meaning in a moment, and with rather scant ceremony, thrust the poor little girl’s head below and drew the slide close over.
At the same instant I thought I detected a spot where the sea was breaking somewhat less madly than elsewhere, and I gave the cutter a strong sheer to starboard, that we might enter the surf at that point, it being my opinion that then lay the deepest water.
I had no hope of escaping, but the instinct of self-preservation asserted itself, as it always will, and prompted me to avail myself of even the slenderest and most doubtful chance in our favour.
The cutter heeled violently down, burying her lee gunwale half-deck high in the seething water, and I thought for a moment that she was going over altogether with us; the foresail jibed with a loud flap, and blew clear and clean out of the bolt-rope, and at the same instant the Water Lily plunged wildly into the boiling surf.
I braced myself for the shock which I expected would instantly follow, accompanied by the crashing in of the poor little craft’s timbers, but she did not touch.
The water tumbled on board forward, aft, everywhere, and Bob and I were frequently standing waist deep; and still the cutter rushed furiously on, all my efforts and energies now being directed to keeping as much as possible in those parts where the sea broke with least violence.
After the first half-minute or so, finding that we did not strike, hope faintly revived within me, especially as the cutter suddenly shot into a belt of unbroken water.
Down this channel we rushed, sheering now to port, now to starboard, as we followed its windings, the water becoming smoother with every fathom we proceeded.