TER XLI.

When Thurstane heard, or rather guessed from the captain's gestures, that
the boats were stove, he called, "Are we to do nothing?"

The captain shouted something in reply, but although he put his hands to
his mouth for a speaking trumpet, his words were inaudible, and he would
not have been understood had he not pointed aloft.

Thurstane looked upward, and saw for the first time that the main topmast
had broken off and been cut clear, probably hours ago when he was in the
cabin searching for Clara. The top still remained, however, and twisted
through its openings was one end of a hawser, the other end floating off
to leeward two hundred yards in advance of the wreck. Fastened to the
hawser by a large loop was a sling of cordage, from which a long halyard
trailed shoreward, while another connected it with the top. All this had
been done behind his back and without his knowledge, so deafening and
absorbing was the tempest. He saw at once what was meant and what he would
have to do. When the brig struck he must carry Clara into the top, secure
her in the sling, and send her ashore. Doubtless the crowd on the beach
would know enough to make the hawser fast and pull on the halyard.

The captain shouted again, and this time he could be understood: "When she
strikes hold hard."

"Did you hear him?" Thurstane asked, turning to Clara.

"Yes," she nodded, and smiled in his face, though faintly like one dying.
He passed one arm around the middle stay of the shrouds and around her
waist, passed the other in front of her, covering her chest; and so, with
every muscle set, he waited.

Surrounded, pursued, pushed, and hammered by the billows, the wreck
drifted, rising and falling, starting and wallowing toward the awful line
where the breakers plunged over the undertow and dashed themselves to
death on the resounding shore. There was a wide debatable ground between
land and water. One moment it belonged to earth, the next lofty curling
surges foamed howling over it; then the undertow was flying back in savage
torrents. Would the hawser reach across this flux and reflux of death?
Would the mast hold against the grounding shock? Would the sling work?

They lurched nearer; the shock was close at hand; every one set teeth and
tightened grip. Lifted on a monstrous billow, which was itself lifted by
the undertow and the shelving of the beach, the hulk seemed as if it were
held aloft by some demon in order that it might be