The only chance you have of safety is to be cool, watch
my eye, and execute my orders with precision. Away to your stations
for tacking ship. Hands by the best bower anchor. Mr. Wilson, attend
below with the carpenter and his mates, ready to cut away the cable at
the moment that I give the order. Silence there, fore and aft.
Quartermaster, keep her full again for stays. Mind you ease the helm
down when I tell you." About a minute passed before the captain gave
any further orders. The ship had closed-to within a quarter-mile of
the beach, and the waves curled and topped around us, bearing us down
upon the shore, which presented one continued surface of foam,
extending to within half a cable's length of our position. The captain
waved his hand in silence to the quartermaster at the wheel, and the
helm was put down. The ship turned slowly to the wind, pitching and
chopping as the sails were spilling. When she had lost her way, the
captain gave the order, "Let go the anchor. We will haul all at once,
Mr. Falcon," said the captain. Not a word was spoken; the men went to
the fore brace, which had not been manned; most of them knew, although
I did not, that if the ship's head did not go round the other way, we
should be on shore, and among the breakers, in half a minute. I
thought at the time that the captain had said that he would haul all
the yards at once, there appeared to be doubt or dissent on the
countenance of Mr. Falcon; and I was afterwards told that he had not
agreed with the captain; but he was too good an officer, and knew that
there was no time for discussion, to make any remark: and the event
proved that the captain was right. At last the ship was head to wind,
and the captain gave the signal. The yards flew round with such a
creaking noise, that I thought the masts had gone over the side, and
the next moment the wind had caught the sails; and the ship, which for
a moment or two had been on an even keel, careened over to her gunwale
with its force. The captain, who stood upon the weather hammock-rails,
holding by the main-rigging, ordered the helm a-midships, looked full
at the sails, and then at the cable, which grew broad upon the
weather-bow, and held the ship from nearing the shore. At last he
cried, "Cut away the cable!" A few strokes of the axes were heard, and
then the cable flew out of the hawse-hole in a blaze of fire, from the
violence of the friction, and disappeared under a huge wav