“No, she ‘ont, nor yet in ten,” answered his landlord, gruffly; “sheʼll fetch away to the eastward first, now she is in the tide again, specially with this gale on; and sheʼll take the ground over yonner, and go to pieces with the next breaker.”
She took her course exactly as old Jacob mapped it out for her. He knew every run and flaw of the tide, and how it gets piled in the narrows by a very heavy storm, and runs back in the eddy which had saved so many lives there. This has nothing to do with the “double tide;” that comes after high–water. As the good ship traced the track of death, doing as the waves willed (like a little boyʼs boat in the Serpentine), the people on shore could see those three, who had contested the right of precedence to another world.
They were all upon the quarter–deck; and three finer figures never yet came to take the air there, in the weariness of an Indian voyage. Captain Roberts, a tall, stout man, with ruddy cheeks and a broad white beard, stood with his hands in his pockets, and his feet asunder, and a sense of discipline in his face, as of a man who has done his duty, and now obeys his Maker. No sign of flinching or dismay in his weather–beaten eyes, as he watched his death roll towards him; though the gazers fancied that one tear rose, perhaps at the thought of his family just coming down–stairs at Lymington. The military man beside him faced his death quite differently; perhaps with even less of fear, but with more defiance, broken, every now and then, by anguish for his daughter. He had not learned to fear the Lord, as those men do who go down into the great deep. He looked as if he ought to be commanding–officer of the tempest. The ship, running now before wind and sea, darted along as a serpent darts over the graves in the churchyard; she did not lurch any more, or labour, but rose and fell, just showing her fore–foot or stern–post, as the billows passed under her. And so that young maiden could stand and gaze, with her fatherʼs arm thrown round her.
She was worthy to be his daughter; tall, and light of form, and calm, with eyes of wondrous brightness, she was looking at her fatherʼs face to say the last good–bye. Then she flung both arms around his neck, and fondly, sadly, kissed him. Meanwhile the ship–captain turned away, and thought of Susy Roberts. Suddenly he espied a life–belt washed into the scuppers. He ran for it in a moment, came behind the maid, and, without asking her consent, threw it over her, and fastened it. There was little chance of it helping her, but that little chance she should have.
“Sheʼll take the ground next biller,” cried the oracular Jacob; “stand by there with the ropes, boys.”
On the back of a huge wave rose for the last time the unfortunate Aliwal. Stem on, as if with strong men steering, she rushed through the foam and the white whirl, like a hearse run away with in snow–drifts. Then she crashed on the stones, and the raging sea swept her from taffrail to bowsprit, rolled her over, pitched her across, and broke her back in two moments. The shock rang through the roar of billows, as if a nerve of the earth were thrilling. Another mountain–wave came marching to the roll of the tempest–drum. It curled disdainfully over the side, like a fog sweeping over a hedgerow; swoop—it broke the timbers away, as a giant tosses a fir–cone.
“I canʼt look any longer,” cried Pell; “give me something to feel, men. Quick, there! I see something!”
He seized the bight of a rope, and rushed anyhow into the waters. But John Rosedew and the life–boatmen held hard upon the coil of it, and drew him with all their might back again. They hauled Octavius Pell up in the manner of a cod–fish, and he was so bruised and stupefied, that he could not tell what he had gone for. They only saw floating timber and gear, and wreck of every sort drifting, till just for one sight–flash a hoary head, whiter than driven waters, leaped out of the comb of the billow. A naval man, or a military—who knows, and to whom does it matter?
Brave men ashore, all waiting ready, dashed down the steep of death to save him, if the great wave should toss up its plaything. All Rushford strained at the cables that held them from the savage recoil. Worse than useless; the only chance of it was to make more widows. The sea leaped at those gallant strong men; there were five on either cable; it leaped at them as the fiery furnace leaped on the plain of Dura. It struck the two ropes into one with a buffet, as a lionʼs paw shatters a cobweb; it dashed the menʼs heads together, and flung them all in a pile on a ballast–heap. Lucky for them that it fought with itself, and clashed there, and made no recoil. The white–haired corpse was seen no more; and all Rushford shrunk back in terror.