nly as I gazed I
made out the glint of a light, and then the whole bay and the beach were
lit up in a moment by a vivid blue glare. They were burning a coloured
signal-light on board of the vessel. There she lay on her beam ends
right in the centre of the jagged reef, hurled over to such an
angle that I could see all the planking of her deck. She was a large
two-masted schooner, of foreign rig, and lay perhaps a hundred and
eighty or two hundred yards from the shore. Every spar and rope and
writhing piece of cordage showed up hard and clear under the livid
light which sputtered and flickered from the highest portion of the
forecastle. Beyond the doomed ship out of the great darkness came the
long rolling lines of black waves, never ending, never tiring, with
a petulant tuft of foam here and there upon their crests. Each as it
reached the broad circle of unnatural light appeared to gather strength
and volume, and to hurry on more impetuously until, with a roar and
a jarring crash, it sprang upon its victim. Clinging to the weather
shrouds I could distinctly see some ten or twelve frightened seamen,
who, when their light revealed my presence, turned their white faces
towards me and waved their hands imploringly. I felt my gorge rise
against these poor cowering worms. Why should they presume to shirk the
narrow pathway along which all that is great and noble among mankind has
travelled? There was one there who interested me more than they. He was
a tall man, who stood apart from the others, balancing himself upon the
swaying wreck as though he disdained to cling to rope or bulwark.
His hands were clasped behind his back and his head was sunk upon his
breast, but even in that despondent attitude there was a litheness
and decision in his pose and in every motion which marked him as a man
little likely to yield to despair. Indeed, I could see by his occasional
rapid glances up and down and all around him that he was weighing every
chance of safety, but though he often gazed across the raging surf to
where he could see my dark figure upon the beach, his self-respect or
some other reason forbade him from imploring my help in any way. He
stood, dark, silent, and inscrutable, looking down on the black sea, and
waiting for whatever fortune Fate might send him.

It seemed to me that that problem would very soon be settled. As I
looked, an enormous billow, topping all the others, and coming after
them, like a driver following a floc