.

At length one man only--the skipper--remained on the wreck. I saw him
pause for a moment and glance round him at the poor, shattered,
labouring relic of the ship that had borne him so proudly out of
harbour, probably not very long before, and on board which he had
perhaps successfully battled with wind and wave for many years, and then
drawing his hand across his eyes--to clear them, maybe, of the brine
that had been dashing into them for the last few eventful hours, or,
more probably, to brush away a tear of regret at this dismal ending of a
voyage that was no doubt hopefully begun. Finally, waving a signal to
Roberts, he placed his hands above his head and, poising himself for an
instant, dived headlong into the raging sea. A breathless moment of
suspense, and then we saw Roberts lean over the boat's quarter, grasp
something, struggle with it, and finally the diver's form appeared on
the gunwale and was dragged safely into the boat. At this moment a
towering billow reared itself just beyond the labouring hull, sweeping
down upon it, green and solid, with a curling crest of hissing,
snow-white foam. The men in the gig fortunately saw it too in time,
and, with a warning shout to each other, stretched out to their oars for
dear life. On swept that hissing mountain of angry water, heaving the
wreck up on its steep side until she lay all along upon it, presenting
her deck perpendicularly to us; then, as it broke over her in a roaring
cataract of foam, we saw the upper side of her deck inclining more and
more toward us until over she went altogether, nothing of her showing
above the white water save her stern-post and the heel of her rudder.
For a fraction of a moment it appeared thus, the copper on it glistening
wet and green in the light of the declining sun; then the crest of the
wave interposed between it and us, and hid it from our view. When, a
few seconds later, the great wave reached us and we soared upward to its
crest, _the wreck had vanished_, nothing remaining but a great patch of
foam and a curious swirling of the water's surface to show where the
good ship had been.

Meanwhile, the gig, now deep in the water, was making the best of her
way down to us, and I freely confess that when I saw that huge wave
chasing her I gave her up, and everybody in her, as lost. The boat's
close proximity to the wreck, however, probably proved her salvation,
for its fury seemed to have been spent in completing the des