had
formed and redeemed it,--to creep slowly forward, feeling at every step
the increasing difficulty of my situation. On getting nearly to the end
of the boom, the young officer whom I followed and myself were met with
a squall of wind and rain so violent as to make us fain to embrace
closely the slippery stick (without attempting for some minutes to make
any progress), and to excite our apprehension that we must relinquish
all hope of reaching the rope. But our fears were disappointed; and
after resting for a little while at the boom end, while my companion was
descending to the boat, which he did not find until he had been plunged
once or twice over head in the water, I prepared to follow; and instead
of lowering myself, as many had imprudently done, at the moment when the
boat was inclining towards us--and consequently being unable to descend
the whole distance before it again receded,--I calculated that while the
boat was retiring I ought to commence my descent, which would probably
be completed by the time the returning wave brought it underneath; by
which means I was, I believe, almost the only officer or soldier who
reached the boat without being either severely bruised or immersed in
the water.

But my good friend Colonel Fearon had not been so fortunate; for after
swinging for some time, and being repeatedly struck against the side of
the boat, and at one time drawn completely under it, he was at last so
utterly exhausted that he must instantly have let go his hold of the
rope and perished, had not some one in the boat seized him by the hair
of the head, and dragged him into it, almost senseless and alarmingly
bruised.

Captain Cobb, in his resolution to be the last, if possible, to quit his
ship, and in his generous anxiety for the preservation of every life
entrusted to his charge, refused to seek the boat until he again
endeavoured to urge onward the few still around him, who seemed struck
dumb and powerless with dismay.[8] But finding all his entreaties
fruitless, and hearing the guns, whose tackle was burst asunder by the
advancing flames, successively exploding in the hold into which they had
fallen, this gallant officer, after having nobly pursued, for the
preservation of others, a course of exertion that has been rarely
equalled either in its duration or difficulty, at last felt it right to
provide for his own safety by laying hold on the topping-lift or rope
that connects the driver boom with the m