So it was; and in hot haste she seemed indeed.
“Something is the matter on board that craft,” said Porpoise, who had been looking at her through his glass. “Yes, she has a signal of distress flying.”
“The Lord have mercy on the hapless people on board, then!” said I. “Small is the help we or any one else can afford them.”
“If we don’t look out, she’ll be aboard us, sir,” sung out Snow. “To my mind, she’s sprung a leak, and the people aboard are afraid she’ll go down.”
“Stand by to make sail on the cutter; and put the helm up,” cried Porpoise. “We must not let her play us that trick, at all events.”
On came the little schooner, directly down for us, staggering away under a close-reefed fore-topsail, the seas rolling up astern, and threatening every instant to wash completely over her. How could her crew expect that we could aid them? still it was evidently their only hope of being saved—remote as was the prospect. They might expect to be able to heave-to again under our lee, and to send a boat aboard us. The danger was that in their terror they might run us down, when the destruction of both of us was certain. We stood all ready to keep the cutter away, dangerous as was the operation—still it was the least perilous of two alternatives. We were, as may be supposed, attentively watching every movement of the schooner; so close had she come that we could see the hapless people on board stretching out their arms, as if imploring that aid which we had no power to afford them. On a sudden they threw up their hands; a huge sea came roaring up astern of them; they looked round at it—we could fancy that we almost saw their terror-stricken countenances, and heard their cry of despair. Down it came, thundering on her deck; the schooner made one plunge into the yawning gulf before her. Will she rise to the next sea?
“Where is she?” escaped us all. With a groan of horror we replied to our own question—“She’s gone!”
Down, down she went before our very eyes—her signal of distress fluttering amid the seething foam, the last of her we saw. Perhaps her sudden destruction was the means of our preservation. Some dark objects were still left floating amid the foam; they were human beings struggling for life; the sea tossed them madly about—now they were together, now they were separated wide asunder. Two were washed close to us; we could see the despairing countenance of one poor fellow; his staring eye-balls; his arms outstretched as he strove to reach us. In vain; his strength was unequal to the struggle; the sea again washed him away, and he sunk before our sight. His companion still strove on; a sea dashed towards us; down it came on our deck. “Hold on, hold on, my lads!” sung out Porpoise.
It was well that all followed the warning, or had we not, most certainly we should have been washed overboard. The lively cutter, however, soon rose again to the top of the sea, shaking herself like a duck after a dive beneath the surface. As I looked around to ascertain that all hands were safe, I saw a stranger clinging to the shrouds. I with others rushed to haul him in, and it was with no little satisfaction that we found that we had been the means of rescuing one of the crew of the foundered schooner from a watery grave. The poor fellow was so exhausted that he could neither speak nor stand, so we carried him below, and stripping off his wet clothes, put him between a couple of warm blankets. By rubbing his body gently, and pouring down a few drops of hot brandy and water, he was soon recovered. He seemed very grateful for what had been done for him, and his sorrow was intensely severe when he heard that no one else of the schooner’s crew had been saved.
“Ay, it’s more than such a fellow as I deserve!” he remarked.