So an hour or two went by; up above the dawn broke and the daylight
came. Van Rensselaer was still howling, though so weak that he could
scarcely stagger, when the cabin door was flung wide again, and the
captain, white, and with set lips, came in. "It is all over, sir," he
said. "We are lost."
The owner's eyes were glaring like a maniac's. "What do you mean?" he
shrieked.
"Come up and see," was the reply, and van Rensselaer rushed blindly to
the deck. Clinging to the companionway door, he stared about him, dazed
at first, and realizing nothing but his own horror. A mad chaos was
about him; the yacht was like a bubble tossed about by the gigantic
seas; the waves were like mountains around her. Down into a great valley
she sank, down--down--plunging, and van Rensselaer gasped in fear; and
then a great rolling mountain came sweeping down over her, and up she
rose--higher and higher--to the very crest, and sped along with the
speed of an express train, the mad waters seething and hissing and
roaring and thundering around her.
From the mountain top van Rensselaer gazed about him--and his cries died
in his throat. Not half a mile away, right upon them, as it looked, was
the shore--the wild, lonely, horrible shore--the shore with the jagged
rocks and the merciless iron cliffs--and destruction, imminent and
inevitable!
The sight took the last atom of the soul out of van Rensselaer. He
whimpered, he wailed, he would have fallen down upon the deck and
grovelled but that instinct made him cling to his support. To stand
there alive and safe, and be swept thus to death, foot by foot! To be
helpless in the grip of these grim, relentless forces; it was too much,
it was too much! It made him hysterical, it turned him into a beast,
into a fool. He screamed, he laughed, he sobbed; but the words he spoke
no longer had meaning.
His eyes were fixed upon the black rocks before them; as they came
nearer he heard the sounds made by the mountains of water hurled against
them,--a sound far-reaching, all-pervading, elemental, cosmic. Only once
he turned elsewhere, to see the crew flinging out their anchors in a
last vain hope; to see the yacht whirl round as they caught, to see the
waves lift her up, and sweep her on, and snap the cables like so many
threads.
Then again he perceived that the crew was trying to get out one of the
boats; and he bounded to the spot, and waited. He did not help, he clung
to the davits. But the instant the boat touched the water, he struck one
of the men out of the way and leaped in. Several followed, and there was
a cry, "Enough!" and they pushed off, and were whirled away from the
yacht. An instant later a breaking wave struck them a glancing blow,
and over they went.
Van Rensselaer came to the surface, strangling and gasping, still in his
frenzy of fear. The boat was near, and he struck out and caught it.
There was another man close to him, a sailor, stretching out his hands
to him; as the waves tossed them about he touched van Rensselaer's foot
and gripped it. The other kicked at him madly, in frantic rage--kicked
him off, and kicked him down. So he clung alone to the storm-tossed
life-boat.
It was a fearful struggle: the waves choked him, stunned him, half
drowned him; but he hung like mad, and fought to keep his head above the
water, while the sea was sweeping him nearer and nearer to the iron
shore. He was staring at it wildly, a monstrous enemy with open mouth,
and huge jagged teeth that gaped at him. They were looming high above
him now; the roaring of the breakers swelled in his ears, in his soul,
dazing him, appalling him, poor shivering mite of life that he was. And
then suddenly he felt himself sinking--downward, deep down in a valley;
he felt himself tossed and rocked, swaying as if in a tree-top; and then
upwards he started--higher--higher--right to the boiling crest, the
hovering, poising crest. He screamed, he writhed, it was like some
hideous nightmare, terrifying to the soul. But the wave seized him--he
felt it seize him; and it started--slowly--then faster, then faster
yet--with the speed of a cannon ball--and hurled him, smote him, upon
the jagged rocks. It battered his face, it broke his limbs, it crushed
his skull like an egg-shell; and so the last spark of his hungry life
went out of him.