"It is utterly impossible!" he said again. "No boat can do it—some one should stop him. It means certain loss of life!"
At last, becoming aware that his companions could not understand what was going on, he turned to them with passionate explanation.
"That brave fellow Stanhope says that, with two others at the oars, he intends to row near enough to the rock at half flood to endeavor to spring onto the ladder. I cannot persuade him that no man has ever yet succeeded in such a mad project. Look below, and see how each wave climbs around eighteen or twenty feet of the base. The thing is wildly impracticable. He will be swept off and smashed to pieces before our eyes, even if the boat escapes."
"If the boat can come near enough for that purpose, couldn't we heave a line aboard her?" asked one of the ship's officers.
"We can try. I shall signal them to that effect. Anything is better than to sanction an attempt which is foredoomed to failure, and must result in the death of the man who tries it."
Thereupon more energetic flag-waving took place. Finally Brand desisted in sheer exasperation.
"I cannot convince him," he cried. "He has made up his mind. May the Lord preserve him from a peril which I consider to be a mortal one."
"Has he put forward any theory?" asked Pyne. "He was doing a lot of talking."
"Yes," explained Brand. "He believes that a strong boat, rowed to the verge of the broken water, might watch her opportunity and dart in close to the ladder on the back-wash of a big wave, allowing its successor to lift her high enough for an active man to jump onto the rungs. The rowers must pull for their lives the instant the wave breaks and leave him clinging to the ladder as best he can. There is more chance of success in that way, he thinks, than in trying to make fast a line thrown by us, even if it fell over the boat. It is all a question of time, he argues, and I have failed to convince him that not only he but his companions will be lost."
"Is there no chance?" inquired the second officer.