“Now, by the eternal, you shall go, and that whether you want to or not!” said Jack, and as he spoke, he flung his arms around Tom, and undertook to drag him into the boat. Jack had never measured his strength with Tom before, and it is altogether likely that he found him to be stronger than he had any notion of, for, after struggling with him for a little while, and not being able to throw him down upon the deck, he presently began singing out to the boatswain to come and lend him a hand, as there was no time to lose. So the boatswain came, and in a short time they had lashed Tom’s arms and legs so that he could not move. As soon as they had done this, they heaved him heels over head into the cutter, and then stepped in themselves, and all hands lowered away immediately.
As soon as the boat was in the water, it began drawing under the channel of the ship, and was in great peril of being stove, but the boatswain and two others got out oars, and shoved her off. But no sooner had they pushed the cutter away, than she began drawing in again, for there was a suction that was bringing her right under the stern, which would have been sudden death to every man in her, so they brought the oars to bear once more. At that time the crew of the cutter seemed more afraid of being drawn under the stern of the ship than of too many men jumping into the boat; for the matter of that, Tom saw only one attempt to keep any of the crew from boarding, and that was just after the boat had been lowered into the water.
A poor fellow attempted to slide down the falls from the davits, but the boatswain pushed them to one side, so that he would have fallen into the water if he had tried to jump. It seemed to Tom to be a horrible thing to cut away the last chance that the poor man had for saving his life; he begged hard for him as he hung from the davits, but the boatswain said that the cutter was already full, and that even one man might be enough to swamp her. I suppose that the boatswain must have acted according to his light, but Jack Baldwin, who sat looking on without speaking, should have seen that the man was taken aboard.
The second time that the boat was pushed away, its head came around, and they were soon pulling from the port side of the ship.
When those aboard of the Nancy Hazlewood saw that the cutter was clear, and was likely to get away, they cheered and waved their hands. I can hardly bear to write of this, even now;—it made Tom Granger cry like a child.
The boatswain sat next to him where he lay. He chewed hard at the quid of tobacco in his mouth, as, lying on his oars, he looked back at the sinking ship, and at his messmates standing on her decks. I think, from what some of the sailors afterward said, that they would have been willing to put back to the ship, and have taken off a parcel more of the crew, but nothing of the kind was done.
So every one lay on his oars and looked back; just then the sun shone out, pale and watery. Tom could see the vessel very easily from where he lay. The fore-top sail was still standing, and also half of the main-top sail. The yards on the mizzen were swinging about with the braces loose, and her bulwarks were as sound as when she left the docks. Her stern was low in the water, and her bow was standing so high that her red copper bottom could be plainly seen.
Soon they ran down into the trough of a sea, and the Nancy Hazlewood was hidden from sight; when they came up again, she had changed her position. They could not see the after-part of the vessel, though it might have been hidden by a sea, and not under water. By the pitch of her masts the ship seemed to be sitting at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Just then another sea came, and again they ran down in the trough of it;—when they came up the Nancy Hazlewood was nowhere to be seen.