d evidently shirking the huge seas
which were now boiling around us. At last she hauled her sheet aft,
put her helm over, and went away. One of our crew groaned, but no
other man uttered a sound, and we returned to the shelter of the
deckhouses.

'Though the gale was not at its height when the sun rose, it was not
far from it. We plucked up spirits again when the sun shot out of the
raging sea, but as we lay broadside on to the waves, the sheets of
flying water soon made the sloping decks a dangerous place for a man to
stand on, and the crew and officers kept the shelter of the
deck-cabins, though the captain and his brother and I were constantly
going out to see if any help was coming. But now the flood was making,
and this was a fresh and fearful danger, as we all knew, for at sunrise
the water had been too low to knock the ship out of her sandy bed, but
as the tide rose it lifted the vessel, bumping and straining her
frightfully. The pilot advised the skipper to let go the starboard
anchor, hoping that the set of the tide would slue the ship's stern
round, and make her lie head on to the seas; so the anchor was dropped,
but it did not alter the position of the ship. To know, sir, what the
cracking and straining of that vessel was like, as bit by bit she
slowly went to pieces, you must have been aboard of her. When she
broke her back a sort of panic seized many of us, and the captain
roared out to the men to get the boats over, and see if any use could
be made of them. Three boats were launched, but the second boat, with
two hands in her, went adrift, and was instantly engulphed, and the
poor fellows in her vanished just as you might blow out a light. The
other boats filled as soon as they touched the water. There was no
help for us in that way, and again we withdrew to the cabins.

A little before five o'clock in the afternoon a huge sea swept over the
vessel, clearing the decks fore and aft, and leaving little but the
uprights of the deck-houses standing. It was a dreadful sea, but we
knew worse was behind it, and that we must climb the rigging if we
wanted to prolong our lives. The hold was already full of water, and
portions of the deck had been blown out, so that everywhere great
yawning gulfs met the eye, with the black water washing almost flush.
Some of the men made for the fore-rigging, but the captain shouted to
all hands to take to the mizzenmast, as that one, in his opinion, was
the securest.