“Right, by George, I hadn’t discovered that before, and she looks mighty familiar in—”
“Good lands, it’s the Fish Hawk,” cried Ray in distressed tones. “It’s Uncle Vance and his crew. I—I—by hookey, he’s in a tight fix, too. I guess it’s all up with him now! He’ll be on the reef sure! Nothing to give him steerage way! He’s helpless!”
“By George, it is your uncle, Ray. And he sure is up against it, too. There’s nothing we can do either,” said Mr. Warner unhappily. “He’s too far out for us to get a line to him. We have the cannon out. It’s tucked under the stone pile here. We’re trying to keep it dry. Maybe if he comes on to the reef and the ship holds together long enough we can get a breeches-buoy rigged. But it looks to me as if the Fish Hawk will go to pieces the moment it hits that line of rocks. Look at those breakers pile up! Did you ever see anything like it? A battleship couldn’t stand up under the pounding those waves would give her. Everything has been washed off Cobra Head except the lighthouse foundation stones. The cableway tower is bent and crippled and all the derricks are gone. So are the tool boxes and all the tools. We’re in a bad way out there. It will take us two weeks to recover from this storm.”
In truth, the jagged reef with the Cobra’s Head at the end was terrible to look upon. Waves thirty feet in height were hurling themselves against the rugged granite boulders, as if seeking to drive the stony barrier deep into the ocean. But the reef resisted the onslaughts and great towers of water shot aloft as the breakers burst with a hiss and a roar against the immovable stone. Jack realized the terrible crushing power behind the tons of water, and he knew that there was little hope of the Fish Hawk staying whole once she grounded on the reef.
Close and closer to its terrible fate drove the helpless yawl while the men on the cliff looked on in grim silence. Sometimes the rain came down so hard and fast that the doomed vessel was shut from view. But each time the storm abated they could see that the sturdy little craft had been driven nearer to the horrible end that awaited it.
Yet with the fight almost lost the swordfishermen had not surrendered. Both Jack and Ray could see a man still clinging to the wheel while several others crawled about the careening decks and sought to build a jury rig on the stump of the foremast. With but a few square feet of canvas to give the vessel steerage way, there was still the barest chance of saving her. But no human beings could hope to work the battered little craft in such an angry sea. Any moment one of the ugly waves that swept the decks might catch them off guard and sweep them over the side like so many match sticks.
Jack, and every other man on the promontory for that matter, stood spellbound. Here before their very eyes were a dozen human beings going to certain death and no power on earth could stop them. It was appalling. Jack shuddered.
“Oh, can’t something be done? Can’t we get a line to them?” he asked, clutching Mr. Warner’s arm.
“I’m afraid not, son,” said Mr. Warner, choking with emotion. “It’s terrible, but we’re powerless. They are too far off. We’ll have to wait until they strike and then perhaps we may be able to do something.”
“Poor Uncle Vance. I feel mighty sorry for him. And Bannerman too, poor fellow, and Mack and Duncan. Heaven help ’em. It’s the end of ’em all,” cried Ray as he watched the storm-tossed Fish Hawk drive toward her doom.