It was all in vain, though, their shouts and cries being unnoticed.
The next moment the on-coming vessel struck them, fortunately not end-on or amidships, but in a slanting fashion, her cutwater sliding by the gunwale of the cutter, from bow to stern, with a harsh, grating sound and a rasping movement that shook their very vitals—the little yacht heeling over the while until she was almost on her beam-ends.
Had the vessel caught her midships, she would have at once crushed her like an eggshell; as it was, the fluke of one of her anchors, which was hanging from her bows ready for letting go in case of emergency, the barque being not yet clear of soundings, got foul of the cutter’s rigging, sweeping her mast and boom away, the stays snapping under the strain as if they were packthread.
Poor little cutter! She was left a complete wreck and nearly full of water; still rocking to and fro from the violence of the collision, even after the craft that had done all the mischief had again, seemingly, re-transformed herself into a phantom ship and faded away in the mist that hung over the sea, like the creation of a dream!
It was a very bad dream, though; and Bob and Dick gave themselves up for lost altogether.
Their fate, drifting helplessly about, an hour or so before, hungry and miserable, had seemed desperate enough; but their slight sleep, with the subsequent awakening to the knowledge that the wind had sprung up again and was bearing them once more in some certain direction, had restored their courage and revived their hopes.
This courage, too, had became more courageous, this hope more hopeful on the approach of the barque; for, they believed she would take them on board and restore them by and by to their friends, advancing so gallantly as she did towards them, like an angel, so Dick thought.
But, now!
What were the calamities which they so recently bewailed in comparison with the present?
Then, the yacht might have been at the mercy of the mist and tide; but she was still staunch and sound, capable when a breeze blew once more of wafting them home—whereas, now, the little cutter was dismasted and water-logged, nay, even sinking for all they knew!