Unfortunately the blocks were without patent clip hooks, and the moment the boat was water-borne the fore-bottom of her was nearly wrenched out by her fall into the hollow ere the languid bow oar could release the block. But it was done, and they got away.
She nearly filled three times in her passage. The drag of the oars was not strong enough; they wanted the long and steady sweep of their old power to rescue the boat from the arch of foam astern. Yet they managed to get alongside, and with the swift leap of the sailor Hardy gained the main-chains, and in a minute was standing on the main-deck, with Julia sobbing in his arms.
"Where is the captain?" were almost the first words Hardy addressed to her.
"He drowned himself," she answered, speaking sobbingly with tumult of passion. "He made me sit there beside him"—she pointed to the deck-house front—"and watch for the coming of the boy. The bell was struck—it was strangely struck. He thought it was his child, and he ran forward and climbed upon those pieces of timber as though his little son was beckoning, and then he cried out he was coming and sprang overboard, and I fainted. Oh, since I returned to consciousness what a time it has been! And yet—and yet I felt you were near and would come."
As she spoke the wind howled with a sudden note of raving in the rigging, and deep as the brig was her loose canvas was inswept till it depressed her by a couple of strakes, and you might have thought she was settling, and with this sudden blast came on a heavy squall of rain, which thickened the air till the ship that was on the quarter loomed a surging and streaming phantom. At the same moment cries were heard over the side. Hardy rushed to the rail, and what did he see?
The boat was stove and full! One man had disappeared, and the two others were floating a fathom or two beyond her locked in each other's embrace.
Hardy sprang to the brig's quarter, crying, "O God! O my God!" as he ran.
He slipped some bights of running gear off a pin, and yelling "Look out for the end of this line!" he hove.
One could not swim, and clung to the other who could, and there was no virtue in a rope's end though flung by an angel of God to save them. For one moment the line was close; the desperate heave of the half-drowned fabric dragged it fathoms out of reach. The pitiless seas broke over them, and with agony of mind, and a heart almost in halves, Hardy saw them vanish.