“We may lower the sail; but all the strength we possess could not keep us out of the breakers,” answered Boxall. “We had better do as Ben suggests—stand on, and hope to be carried safe through them. Hold fast, all of you!” cried Boxall; “here we are close upon them.”
As he spoke, we saw the waters hissing and foaming and dancing up to a prodigious height, as it appeared, directly before us, while the land rose still more distinctly behind them. The next instant we were in their midst.
“Hold fast! hold fast!” again shouted Boxall, “and we shall be carried safely through.”
The breakers did not appear so high as they had done a little way off, and we all had hopes that Boxall’s predictions would prove correct. But we had not much time for thinking; my head whirled and I felt giddy as I looked at the tumbling, foaming waters surrounding us. The raft lifted on the top of a sea, and came down with a fearful crash on a rock; and I felt myself torn from the grasp I had of the raft, and carried far away from it. I looked for my companions, and distinguished Halliday struggling near me. Striking out, I caught hold of him and urged him to endeavour to reach the shore, which appeared at no great distance before us. I then shouted to the rest of my companions, and was thankful to hear Boxall’s voice.
“Strike out ahead; we have not far to swim,” he answered, and presently he was close up to us. Neither Ben nor José, however, replied to our shouts; but self-preservation compelled us to try and make the best of our way to the shore, without attempting to look for them.
We had not struck out far when I felt my feet touch something. For an instant the horrid thought occurred to me that it might be a shark; but I retained my presence of mind,—and directly afterwards, greatly to my astonishment, I felt my feet touching the ground. I told my companions; and soon we all found ourselves standing, with the water scarcely up to our armpits. Still, though we distinctly saw the shore, it appeared to be a long way off. We now stopped to look around us. Not far-off, on one side, rose a rock to a considerable height, as it seemed, above the water. Believing that we were on a sand-bank, and that we might possibly have to swim a considerable distance, we agreed to make for the rock and rest on it till daylight. Holding each other’s hands, we accordingly waded on, when suddenly we found that we had reached the rock,—on which we without difficulty climbed. The upper part of it, which was much lower than we expected, was perfectly dry; showing that the sea, in moderate weather, did not break over it. Boxall was of opinion that we had struck on a reef which extended parallel with the coast, and broke the force of the waves, and that we were in an intervening lagoon,—so that should it be now low water, which he thought probable, we could have no difficulty in reaching the shore.
We again shouted to Ben and José, but no reply came; and fearing that they must have been lost, we gave up calling to them and sat down.
The wind fell soon afterwards, and wet through as we were, by sheltering ourselves in a crevice of the rock we did not suffer much from the cold. After waiting for some time, we found that the tide was ebbing.
“If we wait till the morning we shall have high-water again; and in my opinion we shall be wise to try and get on shore at once,” said Boxall.
Halliday and I agreed with him; for, our strength being restored, we were anxious to find ourselves safe on dry ground. We could not, however, fail to grieve for the loss of Ben, who had been so faithful to us; and also for his companion, José, who seemed a truly honest fellow.