Just at that moment a cry was heard above the tumult of the sea. It was a wild shriek that seemed to echo in the lowering dome of the sky. Greeba was the first to hear it.
"There was some one left on the ship!" she cried.
The men stopped and looked into each other's faces one by one.
"No," said the skipper, "we're all here."
The cry was heard once more; it was a voice of fearful agony.
"That's from Port-y-Vullin," said Asher Fairbrother: and to Port-y-Vullin they all hastened off, following the way of the beach. There it was easy to see from whence the cries had come. An open fishing boat was laboring in the heavy sea, her stern half prancing like an unbroken horse, and her forepart jammed between two horns of the rock that forks out into the sea from Maughold Head. She had clearly been making for the little bay, when she had fallen foul of the shoal that lies to the north of it. Dark as the night was, the sea and sky were lighter than the black headland, and the figure of a man in the boat could be seen very plainly. He was trying to unship the mast, that he might lighten the little craft and ease her off the horns that held her like a vice, but every fresh wave drove her head deeper into the cleft, and at each vain effort he shouted again and again in rage and fear.
A boat was lying high and dry on the shore. Two of the Fairbrothers, Stean and Thurstan, ran it into the water, jumped into it, and pushed off. But the tide was still making, the sea was running high, a low ground swell was scooping up the shingle and flinging it through the air like sleet, and in an instant the boat was cast back on the shore. "No use, man," shouted many voices.
But Greeba cried, "Help, help, help!" She seemed to be beside herself with suspense. Some vague fear, beyond the thought of a man's life in peril, seemed to possess her. Did she know what it was? She did not. She dared not fix her mind upon it. She was afraid of her own fear. But, low down within her, and ready at any moment to leap to her throat, was the dim ghost of a dread that he who was in the boat, and in danger of his life on the rock, might be very near and dear to her. With her hood fallen back from her head to her shoulders, she ran to and fro among the men on the beach, crying, "He will be lost. Will no one save him?"
But the other women clung to the men, and the men shook their heads and answered, "He's past saving," and "We've got wives and childers lookin' to us, miss—and what's the use of throwing your life away?"
Still the girl cried "Help," and then a young fellow pushed through to where she stood, and said, "He's too near for us to stand here and see him die."