The startling cry rang through the ship. The captain turned round with a face of agony.
“Man overboard!” shouted Cigole again. “Help! It’s Brandon!”
“Brandon!” cried the captain. “He’s lost! O God!”
He took up a hen-coop from its fastenings and flung it into the sea, and a couple of pails after it.
He then looked aloft and to the south with eyes of despair. He could do nothing. For now the storm was upon them, and the ship was plunging furiously through the waters with the speed of a race-horse at the touch of the gale. On the lee-side lay the sand-bank, now only three miles away, whose unknown shallows made their present position perilous in the extreme. The ship could not turn to try and save the lost passenger; it was only by keeping straight on that there was any hope of avoiding that lee-shore.
All on board shared the captain’s despair, for all saw that nothing could be done. The ship was at the mercy of the hurricane. To turn was impossible. If they could save their own lives now it would be as much as they could do.
Away went the ship—away, farther, and farther, every moment leaving at a greater distance the lost man who struggled in the waters.
At last they had passed the danger, the island was left behind, and the wide sea lay all around.
But by this time the storm was at its height; the ship could not maintain its proper course, but, yielding to the gale, fled to the northwest far out of its right direction.