Scarcely had he spoken than there came a fearful crash. The masts went by the board. The sea, with thundering roars, broke over the doomed ship. Crash succeeded crash. The shrieks of those carried away could be heard every moment. Dick kept to his resolution of clinging tightly to a stanchion. Presently came the final crash, when the Marie parted amidships, and those forward found themselves separated from their companions. The sea twisted the bow round and floated it away, but it still held together. “We shall be carried off from the land!” cried Ben Rudall. “We had better try to get hold of some spars and float ashore.”
“I thought you advised us to cling to the ship as long as she held together,” observed Dick.
“But she’s not holding together,” answered Ben. “To my mind, she’ll either go down in deep water, or go to pieces when we are too far off to reach the shore.”
Still Dick had made up his mind to stick to the ship.
“Well, mates, who’s for the shore?” cried Ben.
“Only those who are tired of life!” said the old seaman; “the wise ones will stick to the wreck. The chances are that will be cast on the beach, where we shall have a better chance of landing.”
Ben, however, still adhered to the belief that they would have a better prospect of saving their lives by clinging to some of the floating mass than by holding on to the forecastle, over which the sea was continually washing.
Several, while doubting what to do, were swept from their hold, and had no choice given them. Ben, with three others, got hold of some pieces of timber.
“If you escape and I get drowned, give my love to poor Susan and the children. Say that my last thoughts were about them,” cried Ben, as he threw himself after his companions.
Dick and the old seaman alone remained. The mass of wreck was tossed wildly about for some minutes, being swept by a current parallel to the shore, until at length, lifted by a sea, it drove on a reef, when the next sea rolling up, carried its two occupants overboard, together with several fragments of the bulwarks which it had torn off.