There were several surveyors in the party, and their assistants, besides the sailors of the vessel and a few soldiers from Captain Meinhold’s company, who acted as an escort.
Terrified almost out of their wits by the violence of the wind and the fearful height to which the waves ran, tossing the craft up and down as if it were a mere cockleshell, were also three women, wives of three of the surveyors.
Suddenly, when the storm was at its height, a wave swept over the quarter of the schooner, washing away a deck house and carrying five men with it.
To save them was impossible. Even if the skipper could have worn schooner, instead of merely driving helplessly before the wind, they could not have been found and picked up on such a stormy night in such a raging sea.
A few minutes later the mainmast went by the board, killing two more men and leaving the vessel a helpless wreck.
The skipper was one of the two men killed by the fall of the mast. His mate had been washed overboard. There was no one left who was competent to navigate the vessel, even if she had been navigable.
The well had been sounded a little while before, and it had been found that the craft was leaking badly.
Captain Meinhold ordered one of the seamen to find out if the water was gaining. The man did so, and returned with the terrible news that it was simply pouring in and the schooner was fast settling down.
“She’s nothing but a sieve now,” said the man. “The fall of the mainmast just racked her to pieces and opened the seams.”