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The disaster to the brig had happened shortly before midnight; and for the rest of that wild and bitter night, until seven bells in the morning watch, Leslie stood there alone at the wheel, keeping the brig stern-on to the fast-rising sea. Then the carpenter and the remainder of the crew appeared on deck, and one of them came aft to his relief.
Then I saw a mountain slope directly behind us, out the rear window. A moment later, I saw rocks and boulders sticking out of it in apparent defiance of gravitation, and then I realized that it was level ground and we were coming down at it backward. That lasted a few seconds, and then we hit stern-on, bounced and hit again. I was conscious up to the third time we hit.
"Well, sir, at that minute there began the most exciting time I've ever been through, and I've been on every sea on the map for twenty-five years. Every second there'd be waves 15 or 20 feet high, belting us head-on, stern-on and broadside, all at once. We could see them coming, for without any stop at all flash after flash of lightning was blazing all about us. "Something else we could see, too.
The tide is ebbing strong by this time, so the ship will be riding more or less stern-on to the wind, and we shall find a very satisfactory lee and shelter at the spot that I have named." "Ay," assented the skipper. "And when you have finished smoking, what can you wish for better than this fine saloon, in which to play cards, or read, or even to organise an impromptu concert?
It was strange how slowly and steadily she swept in, for her broken chain-cable dragged, as it afterwards proved, and kept her stern-on to the shore, and they could sometimes hear amid the tumult a groan that seemed to come from the very heart of the earth, as she painfully drew her keel over hidden reefs.
"Do you know Soller, señores the prettiest little valley in Europe, full of the scents of the orange and the lemon trees with which it is planted? No? then visit it when you have the chance. I regret that we shall not be there to receive you. But we go on to the little port of Soller, where a feluccre is lying stern-on to the quay waiting for us.
The wave went right over them, sweeping the boat from stem to stern; but as it had met the sea stern-on it was not overturned. It was completely filled however, and some time was necessarily lost in freeing it of water. The oars, being attached to the sides of the boat by lanyards, were not carried away. In a few minutes they had veered down under the lee of the wreck.
As this sound arose I looked away to the westward, the quarter from which it came, and saw, by the faint, sombre, ruddy light of the unnaturally glowing sky, a thin white line appear upon the horizon, lengthening and thickening as I watched, until it became a rushing wall of foam, bearing down upon the felucca at terrific speed, while behind it the heavens grew pitchy black, and the murmur became a low, deep roar, and the roar grew in volume to a bellow, and the bellow rose to an unearthly howl, and the howl to a yelling shriek, as the hurricane leapt at the felucca which, happily, was lying stern-on to it and seized her in its grip, causing the stout, close-reefed lug-sail to fill with a report like that of a cannon, and burying her bows deep in the creamy, hissing smother ere she gathered way, while the scud-water flew over her in blinding, drenching sheets.
The gradual unfolding of the picture prepared my mind for what I could not see till the brink was reached; then, looking down, I beheld a schooner-rigged vessel lying in a sort of cradle of ice, stern-on to the sea.
We allowed the boats to drift down to leeward, with their oil-bags towing astern, and with only two oars out, to keep them stern-on to the sea; and so accurately had our distance been calculated that when the Manilla came up abreast of us we only needed to pull a stroke or two to get comfortably under her lee.
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