“If she holds for half an hour,” ejaculated the captain, “we may yet be saved.”
On rushed the noble ship, seeming to know how much depended on her. She met the billows, she rose above them, she struggled perseveringly forward. In five minutes the breakers were visibly receding.
But hope had been given only to delude us. Suddenly I heard a crack, sharper than an explosion of thunder, and simultaneously the course parted from its fastenings, and sailed away to leeward, like a white cloud driven down the gale.
A cry of horror rose from all. “It is over!” I cried; and I looked around for a plank, intending to lash myself to it, in anticipation of the moment for striking.
When the course went overboard, the head of the ship fell off immediately; and now the wild breakers tumbled and roared closer at hand each moment.
Suddenly the captain seized my arm, for we were holding on almost side by side.
“Ha!” he cried, “is not that dark water yonder?” and he pointed across our lee-bow.
I looked in the direction to which he referred. Unless my eyes deceived me, the long line of breakers came to an abrupt termination there, as if the shore curved inwards at that point.
“You are right—there is a deep bay ahead,” I cried, joyfully. “Look! you can see the surf whitening around the cape.”
The whole crew simultaneously detected this new chance of escape. Though unable to head to the wind as before, there was still a prospect that we could clear the promontory. Accordingly, the next few minutes were passed in breathless suspense. Not a word was spoken on board. Every eye was fixed on that rocky headland, around which the waters boiled as in the vortex of a maelstrom.