CHAPTER XLI.
When Thurstane heard, or rather guessed from the captain's gestures, that the boats were stove, he called, "Are we to do nothing?"
The captain shouted something in reply, but although he put his hands to his mouth for a speaking trumpet, his words were inaudible, and he would not have been understood had he not pointed aloft.
Thurstane looked upward, and saw for the first time that the main topmast had broken off and been cut clear, probably hours ago when he was in the cabin searching for Clara. The top still remained, however, and twisted through its openings was one end of a hawser, the other end floating off to leeward two hundred yards in advance of the wreck. Fastened to the hawser by a large loop was a sling of cordage, from which a long halyard trailed shoreward, while another connected it with the top. All this had been done behind his back and without his knowledge, so deafening and absorbing was the tempest. He saw at once what was meant and what he would have to do. When the brig struck he must carry Clara into the top, secure her in the sling, and send her ashore. Doubtless the crowd on the beach would know enough to make the hawser fast and pull on the halyard.
The captain shouted again, and this time he could be understood: "When she strikes hold hard."
"Did you hear him?" Thurstane asked, turning to Clara.
"Yes," she nodded, and smiled in his face, though faintly like one dying. He passed one arm around the middle stay of the shrouds and around her waist, passed the other in front of her, covering her chest; and so, with every muscle set, he waited.
Surrounded, pursued, pushed, and hammered by the billows, the wreck drifted, rising and falling, starting and wallowing toward the awful line where the breakers plunged over the undertow and dashed themselves to death on the resounding shore. There was a wide debatable ground between land and water. One moment it belonged to earth, the next lofty curling surges foamed howling over it; then the undertow was flying back in savage torrents. Would the hawser reach across this flux and reflux of death? Would the mast hold against the grounding shock? Would the sling work?
They lurched nearer; the shock was close at hand; every one set teeth and tightened grip. Lifted on a monstrous billow, which was itself lifted by the undertow and the shelving of the beach, the hulk seemed as if it were held aloft by some demon in order that it might be dashed to pieces. But the wave lost its hold, swept under the keel, staggered wildly up the slope, broke in a huge white deafening roll, and rushed backward in torrents. The brig was between two forces; it struck once, but not heavily; then, raised by the incoming surge, it struck again; there was an awful consciousness and uproar of beating and grinding; the next instant it was on its beam ends and covered with cataracts.