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He dared not relieve the ship of another inch of canvas, for we were on a lee-shore, and embayed, the land astern curving out to windward so far that its farthest visible projection bore a full point on our weather quarter, while our charts told us that beyond that point the dreaded Penmarks stretched out still farther to windward.
He obeys orders, heedless of consequences; he issues commands amid the uproar and tumult of pressing emergencies. There is no chance for quackery in his work. The wind and the wave are infallible tests of all his knots and splices. He cannot cheat them. The gale and the lee-shore are not pictures, but fierce realities, with which he has to grapple for life or death.
Here we were very nearly getting into an exceedingly awkward scrape, for while I went below to prepare for my morning bath under the head-pump, after witnessing the magnificent sunrise that I have endeavoured to describe, the wind suddenly fell light and died away; and then, while I was dressing after my bath, the sea-breeze suddenly sprang up, blowing half a gale; and there were we, not three miles from the land, with as dangerous a stretch of lee-shore as is to be found in all this region abeam of us.
It was a lee-shore, and there was too much surf and sea for them to send off a boat and ascertain whether we were a French privateer or not; so there we lay till dusk, and then made sail again, and, being so close into the French shore, we picked up a good prize that very night. When the cruise was over, I was satisfied.
But, as it has always been, the greater the good, the nearer the evil; Satan is next-door neighbor to the saint; Eden had a lurking-hole for the serpent. Just here the voyaging is most dangerous; just here we drop the plummet and strike upon a shoal; we lift up our eyes, and discover a lee-shore.
"I am very sure Mr Thudicumb will do his best to beat out of the bay," answered Roger Trew. "I know that no seaman would like to be caught on a lee-shore like this in such a gale; and if it lasts long, even though the anchors do hold, it is likely enough to tear the stem out of her.
"Let her carry on, she'll bear it," said the captain. "We cannot do too much to get away from those confounded breakers; I'd sooner hear anything than them!" "So would I," responded Mr Meldrum, still looking pale, for the Nancy Bell had had a narrow squeak of going to the bottom when wearing; "but we are rushing into almost as terrible a danger as the lee-shore.
In this way, each encouraging the other in recklessness, did these two craft run nearly into the lion's jaw, as it might be; for, when the day re-appeared, the wind veered round to the eastward, a little northerly, bringing the craft directly on a lee-shore, blowing at the time so heavily as to render a foresail reefed down to a mere rag, more canvass than the little vessels could well bear.
John Crawford was, in short, a miserable human wreck, all its pride, beauty and power shorn and swept away, and drifting helplessly on to that lee-shore which is called death. There was one peculiar feature of his situation which has not yet been named, and yet it was the most noticeable of all connected with him.
But the instant she saw him a man, with a bright, cheerful countenance, on which rough living and exposure to frequent peril had stamped unmistakable lines of energy and decision, and to which recent illness had imparted a captivating touch of sadness the moment she beheld this, and the undeniable scrap of whisker that graced his cheeks, and the slight shade that rested on his upper lip, her heart leaped violently into her throat, where it stuck hard and fast, like a stranded ship on a lee-shore.
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