reach us
before the brooding tempest broke loose and involved us all in its
clutches. I glanced anxiously round the horizon, and was not reassured
by what I saw; for the aspect of the heavens had rapidly grown so
threatening that it looked as though the outburst must inevitably come
within the next minute or two, while, strive as they might, the
strangers could not get alongside us in less than ten minutes at the
least. And we could do absolutely nothing to help them, for at this
moment there was not the faintest perceptible movement of the
atmosphere, and both craft lay as motionless as logs in a timber pond.
I looked aloft at the vane at our masthead; it might have been made of
cast iron for all the movement that it betrayed; I wetted my finger and
held it up, turning it this way and that in the hope of detecting a
draught, however slight; but there was nothing. A glance at the blazing
hull of the schooner showed that the flames were shooting heavenward as
straight as the flame of a candle burning in a vault. No, there was
nothing to be done except to get a number of rope's-ends ready to fling
into the boat the moment that she came alongside, should she succeed in
doing so; and this we did, flinging the coils of braces and what not off
the pins to the deck in readiness to cast at the moment when perhaps a
second more or less might make all the difference between life and death
to some fourteen or fifteen of our fellow-creatures.

That the occupants of the boat were as fully alive as ourselves to the
critical nature of the situation was clear from the desperate energy
with which they toiled at the six oars they had thrown out, the stout
ash blades bending almost to breaking point at each stroke and sending a
long trail of tiny froth-flecked swirls seething and driving astern, as
the men sprang and bent their backs to their work, while the water
buzzed and foamed under the craft's bluff bows. They were racing for
their lives, and knew it! Fathom by fathom the heavy boat surged ahead
over the oil-smooth surface of the black water, with the scowling sky
writhing overhead, as though the spirit of the storm were struggling to
burst its bonds and leap upon them. They were already so near at hand
that we could hear their cries as they shouted encouragement to each
other, when a sudden puff of air from the north-west swept over the
ship, causing the topsails and staysail to momentarily fill, with a
report like a musket-