"Mebbe you'll git a chance yet," he said. "If it had blown half an hour longer, you cud ha' tried."
They worked off that afternoon, getting sail up as the wind slacked. At night they kept the light in sight, and the next morning were standing back for Gun Key under a single-reefed mainsail with a fine strong northerly wind and clear sky. The steamship lay over on her side in the surf, which broke over her in sheets of foam and spray. The sea had gone down; but there still was enough to tear up the craft. The masts and funnel and nearly all the superstructure had gone. Even the iron sides were smashed, twisted and bent, the plates starting and ripping clear of the rivets under the smashing blows of the sea. No sign of life showed aboard; but as she was high up on the bank there was no doubt that men could live. The Sea-Horse ran close enough to give the crew a chance to read the name Orion on the stern.
"One o' them new ships," said Bill. "She was in Key West last time we ran sponges."
They ran as close to the surf as they dared, and let go both anchors. Paying out cable, the sloop soon came within fifty fathoms, and then stopped; for the sea rose just under the stern, and burst a few fathoms farther in.
"Gimme a line," said the mate.
Sam and Heldron brought forth a coil of whale line, and the black man stripped for the plunge. He went over the side without a splash, and they paid out fathom after fathom until his black head showed close to the bow of the ship, which had settled inshore and lower. Then they saw him disappear around it, and they waited. Five, ten, minutes passed, and then a form showed upon the high stern. It was the mate, and he waved to haul line.
Heldron went over the taut line next, followed by a Swede and Sam. Then the line was slacked off, and the big mate, taking a new one, plunged to leeward and made his way ashore. Half-fish, the diver went through the surf without accident and joined the light-keeper and his assistant on the beach, where they were waiting to do what they could to save those on the wreck. A line they had sent in on a buoy had parted, and the man upon it had been drowned.
The mate went back aboard, and managed to get the ten passengers and rest of the crew ashore without accident. All had gone except an uncouth-looking lad, the ship's galley-boy, in whom no one took interest enough to care whether he got ashore or not. Dirty, dishevelled and frightened beyond words, the lad crawled out of his hiding-place and begged the big mate to take him in.
As he had been calling and looking through the ship for disabled men, the Captain having told him his crew, the mate seized the lad without further words and plunged over the side. The boy was the last person unaccounted for.