McLagan raised a threatening hand.
“For God’s sake, shut up and come on!” he cried impatiently. “Come on, Peter. Maybe ther’s women down there. We’ll do what we can.”
The engineer waited for no reply. The vessel was looming largely half-way across the bay. Now, as she passed into the shelter of the towering cliffs, her sails were flapping and booming in the breeze. But she was racing on to her destruction on the tremendous current, helpless yet almost magnificent in her white suiting over her black hull. It seemed incredible that nothing could be done to save her. A fresh, calm Spring day with a flat sea. And yet there was no help for her.
Not a sound came up from her decks but the crashing of her great sails. There was not a single human voice crying out its agony of despair. Only there came the mournful shrieks of the circling sea-fowl as the men raced down the rocky pathway to the beach below.
CHAPTER XII
The Limpet of Boston
THE outlook of the day had materially changed with the tide. The wind had increased mightily, and the fine, fresh, early summer sky had changed to one of banking storm-clouds which drove down out of the northwest. It was a prospect of rough weather, for all there were still moments when the sun broke through the grey, and strove nobly to lighten the depressing outlook.
McLagan and his companions were standing on the slippery, weed-grown rocks. They were gazing speculatively up at the high sides of the wrecked vessel as she lay cradled upon the jagged belt of rocks which the ebb of the tide had laid bare. She was lifted high out of the water, for the flood tide had long since abandoned her. It had done the work it had striven to accomplish. It had flung its victim crashing upon the trap concealed within its merciless bosom. And now, in turn, satisfied, perhaps satiated, it had itself yielded to the greater forces of Nature. As the waters receded the vessel was left with her high, bluff nose stubbed deeply into the sharply shelving beach, which alone had saved her from complete destruction upon the granite walls of the cliffs beyond.
It was a sight for real pity. Even to the unskilled minds of these landsmen she was a fine, sturdy craft that deserved better of the elements. There she lay, slightly a-list, wounded and sorely stricken. Her forepeak was literally disembowelled and they could only guess at the damage the rest of her bottom had suffered. Her yards were groaning under a hectoring wind, and her torn sails were slashing and whipping viciously in response to its onslaught. Her plates seemed to be sprung in every direction, and she lay there utterly helpless, awaiting the inevitable and complete destruction that was yet to come.