"My Lord," said D——, hurrying up to R——, "we must cut away the boom!"
"Let it go," answered R——, briefly, and with calmness.
The cutter was luffed up, and above the roar of the sea, as it lashed and leaped over the bows, D—— shouted,
"Now, my sons, down with the main! and stand by to cut it away."
"Ay, ay, Sir," the men replied, and arranged themselves almost in an instant in their proper places, just as if they moved by mechanism; and not a human voice was heard as the different ropes were let go, and the huge mainsail, flapping furiously, descended towards the deck. The cutter did not seem to feel the immense weight of the canvass, increased as it was by the rain; but danced about as buoyantly as ever. In a few minutes vanished all idea of sending the mainsail adrift, and every thought was turned to the trysail. Five times the attempt was made to set it; but the furious blasts of wind, now freighted with hail, dissipated the strength of our crew with the same facility as the breath of a man would level a palace of cards. During these repeated efforts to get the trysail up, which necessarily occupied much time, the cutter had drifted some way to leeward; and, at last, the man keeping watch on the bow, exclaimed,
"Breakers! Sir, breakers!"
A dozen of us vociferated at the same moment,
"Where?"
"There they are!" shouted the man; "close on the lee-beam!"
Through the thickness of night the waves were discernible like a heap of snow, white with foam, and, as if wantoning with each other, jumping into the air, not fifty fathoms from the yacht. Sailors are brave men; but when a continuity of danger pursues them, they are apt to despair, not from any want of physical or moral ability, but from that morbid impotence which develops itself in their superstitious fancies. The pilots had not given up the hope of vanquishing the storm, and D——, who knew the disposition of his countrymen, did not yet dread their vacillation; but we did. Nothing seemed possible to save us, but the interposition of Heaven; for the storm-jib and reefed foresail were the only sails on the cutter, and they were barely sufficient, in such a sea, to give her steerage way. Every wave that struck the yacht hurled her near and nearer to the breakers; but the courage of the men continued indomitable, and promptly, with the most cheerful expressions, they performed any, the most perilous task allotted to them.