of Miss Merrivale, who, in the extremity and oblivion of
her enthusiasm, not only addressed me as "Jack," but also volunteered to
do all sorts of impossible things by way of assisting in the rescue that
she took for granted. But how was such a thing to be achieved? We were
only five men on board the _Esmeralda_, all told, and what could our
united efforts accomplish? We certainly could not launch a boat, even
had we dared to hope that so small a craft would live in such a wild and
fearful sea; for the lightest of our gigs--the only boat it would have
been possible to launch, under the circumstances--would need at least
four men to do anything with her in such weather, which would leave only
one man on board to look after and handle the ship during the process of
rescue--which amounted to a physical impossibility.

I was, however, determined to save the men, if it could be done; we
therefore steered the barque as close up under the lee of the wreck as
we dared, and backed our mainyard, with the brig's royal-mastheads
showing just awash not ten feet to windward of us. It was an
extraordinary and appalling picture that we now looked upon. The
vessel--a brig of about one hundred and eighty tons--had been thrown
over on her starboard side, and now lay submerged to about halfway up
her hatchways, with her masts prone along the water, into and out of
which they dipped and rose two or three feet with the wash of the sea
and the roll of the hull. She was a wooden vessel, apparently American
built, and was under whole topsails, foresail, spanker, and jib, which
sufficiently accounted for her present predicament if, as seemed
probable, she had been caught under that canvas in the outburst of the
previous day. She had no quarter davits, and the chocks over the main
hatchway--where the long-boat, and sometimes the jolly-boat as well, is
usually stowed--were missing; but the gripes were still there, showing
that the boat or boats that had been stowed there had evidently been
washed away. There was, moreover, the remains of what had once been a
gig on her gallows. She appeared to have been generously fitted up;
for, as she rose and fell, we caught the flash of brass work about her
skylight and companion, and when her stern lifted high enough out of the
water a handsome brass binnacle, securely bolted to the deck, became
exposed to our view. Lastly, huddled in her weather main rigging, about
twelve or fifteen feet from the ra