h, how they longed and prayed for the day! It came at last, a gleam so
faint that it showed nothing of their surroundings save the outline of
the cavern's great mouth.

"Shall we launch the boats now, sir?" asked the first mate, who was
becoming anxious, because the carpenter had just reported that the water
in the hold was increasing dangerously in spite of the pumps.

"Not yet--not yet," returned the captain, hurriedly. "We must have more
light first. The loss of a boat would be fatal. I'm afraid of the
rising tide."

"Afraid of the rising tide!" Again the words struck strangely on Bob
Massey's ears as he stood wiping the perspiration from his brow after a
long spell at the pumps--and once more carried him back to the sunlit
sands of Old England.

Soon the increase of water in the hold was so great that the getting out
of the boats could no longer be delayed. The first launched was a small
one. It was lowered over the stern by means of the studding-sail boom,
with a block and whip, which kept it from dropping too quickly into the
water. Massey and his friend Slag, being recognised as expert boatmen
in trying circumstances, were sent in it, with two of the crew, to run
out a line and drop an anchor in the sea outside, so that the heavier
boats might be hauled out thereby. Two hundred and fifty fathoms of
rope were given them--more than sufficient for the purpose. On getting
outside, Bob and his friend, according to custom as lifeboat men, kept a
sharp look-out on everything around them, and the feeble daylight
enabled them to see that the black cliff which had, as it were,
swallowed up the _Lapwing_, was full six hundred feet high and a sheer
precipice, in some places overhanging at the top, and without the
symptom of a break as far as the eye could reach in either direction.

"A black look-out, Joe," muttered Massey, as he assisted his comrade to
heave the anchor over the side.

"Ay, Bob, an' the worst of it is that the tide's risin'. A boat can
live here as long as that ridge o' rocks keeps off the seas, but in an
hour or so it'll be rollin' in as bad as ever."

"I knows it, Joe, an' the more need to look sharp."

Returning to the ship, our coxswain made his report, and recommended
urgent haste. But the captain required no urging, for by that time the
ship's main deck was level with the water, and the seas were making a
clean breach over the stern. The passengers and crew crowded towards
the por