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A few inches nearer, and you would have buried that shot in his foremast. Wound the spars if you can; the breeze seems inclined to freshen; and if you can gouge a good substantial piece out of some of his lighter spars, the wind will do the rest for us by sending them handsomely over his bows."
In another instant the vessel was driven with a crash on the sandy bottom. At the same moment down came the foremast, taking with it the jib-boom and bowsprit, all disappearing into the sea. Wave after wave washed over them in quick succession. The mainmast was split, and the noise made by it, as it was beaten about by the gale was deafening.
Her foremast carried square sails; her main and mizzen masts were schooner-rigged. Under steam her speed did not exceed six knots. The equipment included a generous outfit of scientific instruments, a supply of dogs and sledges, ten Manchurian or "Shetland" ponies, and a gasoline motor-car.
After walking towards the mainmast and assuring himself that the sails are not set, he goes up to it and flinging his arms around it, tries with all his might to shake it, as though seeking to pull it down. Finding his efforts futile, he quits it and goes to the foremast, where the same performance is gone through. He waxes more and more excited.
She had scarcely left the brig before it broke in two in the middle; the foremast toppled over into the water, and the after portion disappeared in the waves, as they were lighted up by the repeated flashes from the dark clouds. "We shall be dashed in pieces on the rocks!" exclaimed the mate, as he turned his gaze from the remaining portion of the Waldo to the lofty cliffs on the island.
For an hour and a half the gallant Brunswick carried on the desperate strife, the courage of her opponent's crew being equal to that of her own, when, at about 11 a.m., a French ship was discovered through the smoke, with her foremast only standing, bearing down on her larboard quarter, with her gangways and rigging crowded with men, prepared, it was evident, to board her, for the purpose of releasing the Vengeur.
Mulgrum, overhauling the screen as he proceeded, made his way to the steps by the side of the foremast. But he did not go down, as he had evidently intended to do, and waited till the second lieutenant came over to the lee side of the vessel. "Perhaps the man at the wheel has been listening to our conversation," said the deaf mute, plainly alarmed at the situation. "I did not think of him."
Then came the landed gentry and the clergy, both the Universities, all the Inns of Court, merchants, shopkeepers, farmers, the porters who plied in the streets of the great towns, the peasants who ploughed the fields. The league against the King included the very foremast men who manned his ships, the very sentinels who guarded his palace. The names of Whig and Tory were for a moment forgotten.
As we neared her, we observed that she must have encountered very heavy weather, as part of her foremast and mainmast had been carried away. Her sides looked dirty and worn, and all her ironwork was rusty, as if she had been a long time at sea. She proved to be the 'Lord Raglan, of about 800 tons, bound from Bankok, in Siam, to Yarmouth.
She had evidently made out the lugger before the watch on board the latter had seen her. The captain was foaming with rage, and shouting orders which the crew hurried to execute. On the deck near the foremast lay the man who had been on the lookout, and who had been felled with a handspike by the captain when he ran out on deck, at the first alarm.
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