The moments of recuperation past, his first thought was for his wife. He caught sight of a shapeless something at the further side of the whirlpool, and with all his strength beat round towards it. It was Olive, clinging to an oar.
He reached her; shouted some words of hope above the roar of the wind; searched around the blackness of the night for a place of safety. Thirty yards away, tossed upwards on a giant wave as though in signal to them, there showed for a brief moment the silhouette of an upturned boat, with two men clinging to it.
"Our boat—over there!" he cried to Olive, and clutching her by the arm, fought the combers towards the hope of refuge.
Straddled across the upturned lifeboat were the boatswain and a seaman. The others had disappeared. On such a night it was impossible to rescue them unless by the accident of chance.
Matheson, buffeted and blinded by the thrash of the waves, just managed to drag Olive to the boat's side. The boatswain, Fraser by name, lent him a hand while he recuperated sufficiently to hoist Olive across the keel of the storm-tossed boat.
"Where are the other boats?" he asked of Fraser, when he had recovered speech.
The boatswain made a gesture of helplessness. In that inky night, who could say where lifeboats No. 2 and 4 might be?
Presently a rocket flung a rain of white stars across the black curtain of the sky. It must be from one of their own boats. But it was far away across the waters. They shouted with all their might. The wind hurled their words away in disdain of the puny effort.
Matheson had pocketed a flask of brandy when the call of all hands on deck had sent him tumbling out of his berth. He now poured some of the spirit down Olive's throat, and passed the flask on to the men.
"Be sparing with it," he warned.