at we
should have steered for had all been well with us."
This was so. The clipper, though gradually settling deeper and
deeper into the sea, was yet propelled before the breeze by all the
canvass that it was deemed prudent to place upon her, right towards
the Circassian coast, at a rate perhaps of from four to five knots.
The gale, too, now gradually subsided, and enabled the half-wrecked
people to take more comfortable positions, and Aphiz and Selim to
prepare a raft with the assistance of the crew, for it was but too
apparent that the schooner must go down before long. Hollow groaning
sounds issued from the hatches as she settled lower and lower, and
it really seemed as though the fabric was uttering exclamations of
pain at its untimely fate.
By unbinding and loosing the fore and main yards, a foundation was
made by lashing these spars together, upon which other timbers and
wood work was fastened, and in a few hours a broad and comparatively
comfortable raft was formed. But how to launch it? That was beyond
the power of all those on board united. To wait until the time when
the water should float it from the deck, would be to run the risk of
being engulfed with the schooner, and being drawn into the vortex of
water that would follow her going down, and thus meet a sure and
swift destruction.
But this was now their only hope, and the only means offering itself
for their escape, since the stern and quarter boats had been lost or
stove in the course of the late gale, and so making a virtue of
necessity, they all gathered upon the centre of the raft that had
been thus hastily constructed, and awaited their fate. Aphiz and
Selim bound their respective charges to the raft by cords about
their bodies, to prevent the possibility of their being washed from
its unprotected flooring.
Already the water washed over their very feet, and now and then the
schooner gave a fearful lurch, that caused all hands to stand fast
and believe her going down. Gradually the water crept higher and
higher, and the plunging schooner seemed at every fall of her bows
to be going down. Even the gentle Komel and Zillah could understand
the fearful momentary danger that must ensue when the hull should
plunge at last, and they silently held each other's hands.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried one of the crew, at the top of his voice.
"What now?" demanded Selim sternly of the man, at his seemingly
untimely mirth.
"She floats, she floats--the raft
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