“The sea may run easier at low water, Boltrope,” said Mr Meldrum to console the carpenter; “and if she should be broken up by that time, we’ll send out the jolly-boat and pick up what we can.”
“Begorrah, you won’t have to wait long,” cried the mate; and almost as he spoke, a heavy roller was seen to lift up the wreck on the top of its crest and roll it over, after which the dark body they had observed on the reef with the little scrap of a flag fluttering over it was there no longer!
The Nancy Bell, or rather the remaining fragments of her hull, had disappeared at last beneath the waves!
“I’m afraid we sha’n’t be able to save anything,” said Mr Meldrum, after a moment of silence, in which each of the three witnesses of the vessel’s end had drawn a deep breath, showing how affecting had been the sight. “It is such a long distance out there, and the sea is running so heavily besides, that I wouldn’t like to risk the boat.”
“Sure and we could thry, sorr,” pleaded the first mate eagerly.
“No, Mr McCarthy, it would be hazardous in the extreme; and we ought not to peril the men’s lives unnecessarily! Still, if you want to do something—”
“Bedad I do,” interrupted the other, as if ready at once to dive into the sea if required.
“Well,” continued Mr Meldrum, “you can post a man on the watch here and one or two other places along the cliff, to notice if anything floats inshore; and then, of course, we’ll make an effort to bring it to land should the wreckage drift near.”
“Aye, aye, sorr, you may dipind upon me that same,” said Mr McCarthy; and, rushing down from the rock, he was soon in front of the men’s compartment of the tent, rousing them out with a cry of, “Ahoy there! All hands on deck to save ship! Tumble up, tumble up there, my hearties, there’s no time to lose!”
The men coming out with alacrity, half bewildered by such a hail under the circumstances and surroundings, four were picked out and posted to look out like sentinels—two on the beach and two on the ridge above—and all with strict injunctions to report anything they saw at once, just as if they were put to the same duty on board ship.