rque could continue to live in it, for
it was as high and as steep a sea as I had ever beheld, and it broke
incessantly over the barque with a fury that rendered her continued
existence above water a constantly-recurring marvel. Heavy as it was,
however, it was not so bad as the surf that everlastingly beat upon the
sandy shores of the West Coast; and as I realised this fact I also
remembered that upon more than one occasion it had been necessary for me
to swim through that surf to save my life! "Surely," thought I, "the
man who has fought his way through the triple line of a West African
surf ought to be able to swim twenty or thirty fathoms in this sea!"
The idea seemed to come to me as an inspiration; and, undeterred by the
thought that the individual who should essay the feat of swimming from
the one ship to the other would be seriously hampered by being compelled
to drag a lengthening trail of light rope behind him, I turned to the
skipper and said:

"Captain Dacre, there appears to be but one sure way of getting a line
aboard that wreck, and that is for someone to swim with it--Stop a
moment--I know that you are about to pronounce the feat impossible; but
I believe I can do it, and, at all events, I am perfectly willing to
make the attempt. Give me something light--such as a pair of signal
halliards--to drag after me, and let a good hand have the paying of it
out, so that I may neither be checked by having it paid out too slowly,
nor hampered on the other hand by having to drag a heavy bight after me;
and I think I shall be able to manage it. And if I succeed, bend the
end of a heaving-line on to the other directly you see that I have got
hold, and we will soon get the hawser aboard and the end made fast
somewhere."

The skipper looked at me fixedly for several seconds, as though mentally
measuring my ability to execute the task I had offered to undertake.
Then he answered:

"Upon my word, Mr Conyers, I scarcely know what to say to your
extraordinarily plucky proposal. If you had been a landsman I should
not have entertained the idea for a moment; and, even as it is, I am by
no means sure that I should be justified in permitting you to make the
attempt. But you are a sailor of considerable experience; you fully
understand all the difficulty and the danger of the service you have
offered to undertake; and I suppose you have some hope of being
successful, or you would not have volunteered. And upon my word