"Could not a line be got to her?"
"How are you to get a line to her? We have no rocket or cannon here. There is no chance for them but to swim."
"Swim!" cried the woman, in terror. "How could anyone swim in that sea, and where would anyone swim to?"
"Hush!" said the man impressively, and for a minute all were mute.
The schooner plunged onward through the foam, for she was already in the white outwash from the shore and threw it madly from her bows. She was showing nothing to the wind but a storm-jib; and although she was paying off, she was paying off too slowly to give any grounds for hope. She had her anchors still, no doubt; but to let go her anchors under her nose in such a sea and with such a way on would be the wildest act of madness. They would drag her nose under or tear the bows out of her, capsize her the moment she broached to and came athwart the sea. Better the rocks than the anchors.
And those rocks looked terrible; huge spikes and feline teeth, over which mounted and broke the irregular billows, white with the sullen back-wash of former waves. When the wallowing billows flung themselves mercilessly upon the rocks, the white spray toiled slowly upward, like hopeless signals of distress.
The ill-fated yacht was now within a cable's length of destruction. There was nothing to be done but to hold on, await the end, and take advantage of everything in favour of one's life.
The men were all clinging to the fore-rigging at the weather-side. The two mates, the captain, the Marquis, and the Duke clung to the after-rigging on the same side. Absolutely nothing could be done. If there had been more time they might have tried the effect of more head-sail on her.
At length one huge wave seized her, flung her aloft, and threw her, as a giant might cast a mighty javelin, upon the rocks. There was a tremendous shock, a mighty crunching sound, an explosion like a cannon when the deck burst up in the waist, the scream of torn metal, the groan of yielding planks and timbers, the loud plunging swash of the water--all in a conflict of broken torrents hidden under a pall of blinding spray that rose over the wreck like smoke over the victim of a sacrifice.
"Her back is broken!" said one of the men on shore standing close to where Cheyne was.