e pressure of a westerly, or a
south-westerly gale, when, gathering momentum over an area extending
right round the globe, it hurls itself upon those rugged shores. Still,
it was bad enough. The fact of the gale striking across the regular set
of the swell and current had the effect of making the sea irregular,
short, and broken, which state of things is considered worse, as far as
handling the ship goes, than a much heavier, longer, but more regular
succession of waves.

As the devoted craft drifted helplessly down upon that frowning barrier,
our excitement grew intense. Their inability to do anything but drift
was only too well known by experience to every one of us, nor would it
be possible for them to escape at all if they persisted in holding on
much longer. And it was easy to see why they did so. While Paddy held
on so far to leeward of them, and consequently in so much more imminent
danger than they were, it would be derogatory in the highest degree to
their reputation for seamanship and courage were they to slip and run
before he did. He, however, showed no sign of doing so, although
they all neared, with an accelerated drift, that point from whence
no seamanship could deliver them, and where death inevitable, cruel,
awaited them without hope of escape. The part of the coast upon which
they were apparently driving was about as dangerous and impracticable as
any in the world. A gigantic barrier of black, naked rock, extending for
several hundred yards, rose sheer from the sea beneath, like the side of
an ironclad, up to a height of seven or eight hundred feet. No outlying
spurs of submerged fragments broke the immeasurable landward rush of the
majestic waves towards the frowning face of this world-fragment.
Fresh from their source, with all the impetus accumulated in their
thousand-mile journey, they came apparently irresistible. Against this
perpendicular barrier they hurled themselves with a shock that vibrated
far inland, and a roar that rose in a dominating diapason over the
continuous thunder of the tempest-riven sea. High as was the summit
of the cliff, the spray, hurled upwards by the tremendous impact, rose
higher, so that the whole front of the great rock was veiled in filmy
wreaths of foam, hiding its solidity from the seaward view. At either
end of this vast, rampart nothing could be seen but a waste of breakers
seething, hissing, like the foot of Niagara, and effectually concealing
the CHEVAUX DE FRIS