performance of their duty as pilots, the chance of
speedy relief from our anxious condition was slight indeed.

Hauling our fore-sheet to windward, and tricing up the main-tack, we
now shot rocket after rocket with a sharp report high into the darkness,
and, the roar of our guns booming above the loud storm, must have
reached the shore. For upwards of an hour we lay to, dreading to put the
cutter about, lest, in doing so, she should strike; for the reef of
rocks I have mentioned was nigh, we knew by the chart; but could not, in
the obscurity of night, ascertain the exact position of the vessel.
Again, the rockets rose into the air, and threw a blaze of light around,
as they hissed and flew with the velocity of lightning from the main
shrouds, and then burst, a hundred feet above our heads, into myriads of
blue, and green, and red sparks, which, curving like a feather,
descended towards us, their gently-floating appearance mocking the
turbulence of the elements, and our own inquietude. The guns, too,
bellowing, an instant after, with the loud tongue of distress, seemed,
when their echoes struck with angry force against the elevated points of
land, to upbraid the quick exhaustion and placid beauty of the rockets.

With this land on our lee the wind still continued to blow with unabated
fury, and, seeing that no assistance could be obtained without resorting
to other means, King, with two men, offered to put off in a boat, and
seek the aid we desired. These gallant fellows, in the teeth of a
tremendous sea, jumped into a small boat, and, taking several red and
blue lights to show, at intervals, their position, rowed, as well as
they could calculate, in the direction of the town of Falkenborg.

For two hours, the fate of King and his two companions, was unknown to
us, until the whisper passed from man to man on board, that a light was
imagined to have been seen. An answering signal was immediately ordered
to be made, and a man, running half up the shrouds, burned a blue light;
and, instantly, another blue light shone brightly about three miles to
windward, on our starboard quarter, then a second followed, and a third;
and, to satisfy all doubt, a fourth gleamed steadily through the night.
It had been arranged, that King should show a light for every man he
might have in the boat, so that if he should chance to find a pilot, a
fourth light would immediately convey the intelligence to us.

It was impossible for us to do any