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You with your oars strike the deep breakers of the sea, while sitting at the pins, and see if Zeus will set us free from present death and let us go in safety.
Wilson seized the lead-line, sprang to the fore-chains, and threw the lead; the rope ran out between his fingers, at the third knot the lead stopped. "Three fathoms," cried Wilson. "Captain," said John, running to Will Halley, "we are on the breakers." Whether or not he saw Halley shrug his shoulders is of very little importance.
Here was a narrow opening in the breakers, and, with but one chance in a hundred to guide it, the schooner had driven directly through, ceasing almost at once to rock so violently. But there was enough power left in the waves even behind the rocks to send the schooner upon a sandy beach, where she must soon break up. But Robert was saved. He knew it and he murmured devout thanks.
Could anything have been more striking and unexpected and impressive than the sudden discovery of this great mass of rock resting in the wild sea, its hooded head turned away toward the north and hidden from the spectator on land, its gigantic bulk surrounded by a foam of breakers?
Rivarol's pride compelled him, however much he may have disliked the venture, to lead them in person. The first six boats were caught in the surf, and pounded into fragments before their occupants could extricate themselves. The thunder of the breakers and the cries of the shipwrecked warned those who followed, and thereby saved them from sharing the same fate.
Then he heard nothing more. He went back to the station and made his report. He was so sure of his own ears that he took a lantern and went down to the beach. There he found nothing. He stumbled on towards Cadgwith along the unbroken beach. At times he covered his lantern and peered out to sea, but he saw nothing. At last something white caught his eye. It was half afloat amid the breakers.
About nine, a quarter-master swam ashore, and reported all the officers and some sixty men alive but in pitiable case; some with broken limbs, others insensible from the drenching of the breakers.
Whereon he laughed, and said that the luck of the O'Neills would be all that he needed, while Bertric went without a word and cut the lashing of the ship's oars, and set two handy on the after deck. Now we could see the beach and the white ranks of breakers which lay between us and it. Bertric looked long as we neared the first line of them, and counted them, and his face brightened.
She must have struck the ledge at good speed, and with all sail set, for the canvas was overside, with much of the top-hamper, a horrible mess, tossed about in the breakers, broken ends of spars viciously pounding against the ship's side. The bows had caught, seemingly jammed in between rocks, the stern sunk deep, with cabin port holes barely above reach of the waves.
The hapless craft was lifted by the next surge, and hurried on amid the foaming breakers towards the rocks. At that instant the foresail was set, in the hopes of its helping to force her over them. It was useless; down she came with a tremendous crash on the black rocks.
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