“Up with your helm, hard up! Flatten in your head sheets! Haul in your weather cro’jack brace!”
“Jammed, by G—d!” said the bo’sun, taking a squint over the side at the racing water and the ship rolling helplessly in the trough of the seas, “jammed, by G—d! like Jackson’s cat.”
The ship was in irons. “Would they ever get out of this fix?” thought Harper, while he listened to the skipper shouting orders to the man at the wheel, as she gathered stern-way and heard the Russian Finn’s hoarse:
“Helm’s amidships, sir,” in reply. He was a plucky old man, old Alick MacDonald, given to carrying on as long as he dared, which was a good deal longer than most men would have dared, and his second mate had seen him in some very tight places already, but his good luck had always stood him in good stead; would it hold good once more?
Gradually the ship paid off, slowly her nose came round, and Harper, looking at the foaming line of breakers, thought how perilously close they were. But—but—surely after all she would come through scot free, a moment more—only a moment more. The moon came from behind the heavy clouds paling the light ashore before her bright rays, and showing them just for a second the seething white water all around. So close was the danger, every man held his breath.
“We’re clear!” The words were on Harper’s lips, then—crash—the ship struck with a sickening shock that shook her from stem to stern, and brought down the foreto’g’ll’t mast from aloft with all its tackle, and strewed the deck with wreckage. In a moment the men had dropped the ropes and rushed as one man aft to be clear of the falling top hamper.
“Stand fast, men, stand fast!” sung out Harper. “Where are you off to there?”
“Well,” growled the bo’sun, who still stood by the second mate, “hell’s the next port, if you ask me!” And his companion could not but wonder at his coolness. He too, clinging for life, realized that the good ship Vanity was a total wreck, and as he realized it, he raised his eyes and saw the light, which had been their guiding star till now, go suddenly out and leave all the cliff in pitchy darkness.
Crash went the ship again, bumping heavily and bringing down more hamper from aloft to add to the confusion on deck, and sea after sea swept over her. The two men scrambled aft, and above the thunder of the seas that fell aboard and the roar of the breakers that were not to be disappointed of their prey, heard the skipper shouting orders for the launching of the life-boat. It seemed to Harper no boat could live in such a raging sea, of a surety no boat could land on such a coast—at least not the coast as he knew it, the coast where was the Mackie selection—and the Mackie selection was somewhere hereabouts, you might see the light of their kitchen fire from—Good God! it came upon him like a flash—was that the light that had led them to destruction?
But there was no time for questions like that. The idea passed through his mind as he heard the skipper shout,