“Is there no hope?” Flora asked of me in a whisper.
“Very little,” I replied hoarsely. “It is better to prepare for the worst.”
I put one arm round her, and she voluntarily snuggled closer to me. Thus we sat for twenty minutes or half an hour, expecting constantly to be capsized and flung into the sea. The storm still raged with undiminished violence, but it was growing a little lighter now, and as often as we rose to the top of the swell we could see the faint blur of the land far off. It was an ominous sight, for most of us knew what the shore of the bay was like in a tempest. Wind and tide were drifting us steadily nearer.
“Look! Look!” Captain Rudstone suddenly shouted. “Pull hard about, men! Quick, for your lives!”
But it was too late to avert the danger. I had scarcely glanced behind me, where I saw a mighty wave, yards high, rolling forward swiftly, when the jolly-boat was pitched far into the air. It hovered an instant on the crest of the wall of water and then turned bottom up, shooting us all down the slope into a foamy trough.
I lost my grip of Flora—how I do not know—and was sucked deep below the surface. When by hard struggling I came to the top and looked about, I experienced a moment of sickening horror, for I could see nothing of the girl; but suddenly she rose within a few feet of me, her loosened hair streaming on the water, and by a desperate effort I reached and caught hold of her.
It was just then, as we were both at the mercy of the sea, that a strange and providential thing happened. A heavy spar, which had doubtless been washed from the sinking ship, floated alongside of us. I seized it firmly with one hand, while I supported Flora with the other. We were hurled up on a wave, and from the crest I saw the capsized jolly-boat some distance off. Two men were clinging to the keel, but I was unable to recognize them. The next instant the wind seemed to fall a little and shift to another quarter, bringing with it a gray fog that settled speedily and thickly on all sides of us. But I had caught a glimpse of the coast, and above the gale I could faintly hear the muffled pounding of the surf.
The spar drifted on for several minutes, now high in the air, now deep in the greenish hollow of the sea. Flora was perfectly conscious, and partly able to help herself. We were in such peril that I could offer her no words of comfort, and she seemed to understand the meaning of my ominous stillness.
“Are we going to be drowned?” she asked.
“We are in God’s hands, Flora,” I answered huskily. “The shore is very close, and we are drifting straight in. A tremendous surf is breaking and it will be a miracle if we live through it.”