THE RESCUE
I saw him beat the surges under him,
And ride upon their backs —Shakespeare.
With head upraised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart. —Scott.
During the period that Newell had been in such imminent peril, the
persons on the wreck had been wholly forgotten. Major Gordon was the
first to remember the sufferers. Looking up, he saw that the companion
of the ladies had left their side, and was slowly working his way out on
the bowsprit, which impended far over the boiling surge. At the same
moment, Mullen also raised his eyes.
“Does he mean to leave the wimmen?” he said, indignantly.
“I think not,” answered Major Gordon. “He could scarcely be such a
craven.”
“And yet,” musingly returned Mullen, “it’s only throwing away
another life if he stays. He can’t save the wimmen; yet,” he added,
dubiously, “perhaps he might save himself.”
Major Gordon, however, could not thus excuse the desertion. He made no
reply, therefore, to Mullen.
“The ship seems to be breaking up,” remarked Mullen, “which, I
take it, is the reason of that fellow’s hurry. The wind, since the
vessel came ashore, has hauled towards sou’east, and the waves, as you
see, instead of striking her plump aft, rush quartering over her sides.
They begin to reach the place where the wimmen have sheltered
themselves, and will wash it, every other surge, before long. No timber
can stand such tremendous racking, and you’ll see the craft split in
two directly. But what can’t be cured,” he added, with homely
philosophy, “must be endured. I feared this, when you wanted to come,
for I don’t like to see such sights; but we can’t do ‘em any good;
and they’re not the first, you know, that have died in this way. If
your plan could have been carried out, we might have got ‘em off
safely; and it’s a pity, for it was a good notion, that of yourn.”
To much of this, however, Major Gordon had not even listened. He had
been intently watching the proceedings of Captain Powell.
“Ha!” cried the Major, now, “I thought the man could not be such a
villain. He’ll try to swim ashore with a rope. He has taken the hint
from us.”
As Major Gordon said, Captain Powell, divining the plan of those on
shore, had resolved to attempt reaching shore with a line, when he saw
Newell’s failure. Accordingly he had crept forward to the bow of the
ship, where hastily fastening a light rope to a cable, and arranging
both so that they would run out freely, he dropped himself into the sea,
from the end of the bowsprit, just as the Major spoke his last words.
“Well, he’s a ten-spot anyhow,” said Mullen, taking a figure from
his favorite game of cards. “See, he comes to the surface. He strikes
out bravely. As you say, Major, he’ll maybe do it, for he has the
current to help him. But if he fails, there’ll not be a bit of hope
left for those behind. Look how they watch him. The young one has
actually clambered up the starboard bulwark, and is looking over to see
him, and the old one’s praying.”
Kate, as the speaker said, was leaning over the side of the ship, at no
little peril to herself, in order to watch the progress of Captain
Powell. She it was who had first unriddled what seemed to the captain
the unaccountable movements of those on shore, her fertile intellect
having suggested the possibility of the proposed mode of rescue, and
mentioned it to her companions. It may be supposed that she watched with
intense interest the gallant effort of the young swimmer to reach them.
When that attempt failed, she had resigned herself to death, until
Captain Powell declared his intention of making an endeavor to carry a
line ashore himself.
“It’s our only chance. Without people on land to help afterwards, it
would be of no use; and it’s an even chance whether it succeeds now.
All that I have in my favor is the current, and that may prove
treacherous. You are both lashed fast, and can’t be well washed
overboard. But, in any event, this suspense won’t last much longer;
for the ship must soon go to pieces. God grant that I may not be too
late, even if I reach the shore.”
“She’s a brave girl, whoever she is,” the Major answered to
Mullen. “Most of her sex, at such times, I’m told, lose all presence
of mind, and I don’t wonder at it. But she seems as courageous as Joan
of Arc.”
“Jane Arc,” said Mullen, innocently. “I don’t know her. Some
soldier girl in the army, Major, like Captain Molly, at Monmouth
battle?”
Major Gordon did not reply; in fact he did not hear the remark, for his
faculties were absorbed in watching the crisis of Captain Powell’s
fate. Now the swimmer would be hurried on, a hundred feet or more, by a
single wave. Now he would be caught by a counter current and drifted
obliquely out to sea again. Here a roller would submerge him. There he
would succeed in riding an enormous wave, which the spectators had
feared would carry him under. For awhile he appeared neither to gain nor
to lose. At last, a fortunate billow, exactly such another as had
frustrated Newell going in an opposite direction, caught the swimmer,
and hurried him towards the beach, like a stone sent from a sling.
Instantaneously everybody rushed to the edge of the breaker.
“Join hands! form a line!” cried Mullen; “we must catch him as he
comes in, or the undertow may carry him off again. And even if it
don’t,” he added, “the breakers will pummel the life out of him
directly.” Mullen himself took the advanced post, thrusting Major
Gordon behind, saying, “I’m more used to it!” and the rest placed
themselves as accident permitted. A few moments of eager expectation
followed. Then the form of the now senseless mariner was seen rushing
towards them, on the crest of a breaker; the waters descended; the two
leaders of the line seized the body; and then all went under together,
most of them being struck flat on the strand.
It was only for a second, however. Still holding fast to each other,
they struggled to their feet, and when the wave receded, stood there
triumphantly, Mullen and the Major having the Captain in their arms, and
the rest of the party already seizing the line which communicated with
the ship.
Captain Powell, though temporarily stunned, revived almost as soon as
they bore him out of the water. But his accents were broken and faint.
He trembled also like a child. He had wound up his entire energies to
his late terrible struggle, and the revulsion left him, nervously as
well as muscularly, as helpless as an infant.
“Haul on the line!” he said, feebly. “I made it fast to a stout
cable. Thank God! Thank God!”
Never did men pull on a rope more lustily than his hearers. Mullen
himself timed them, with a “Yo, heave o’, merrily, lads, merrily,”
so that in a little while, the cable had reached half way to the shore.
All at once, however, it refused to advance. In vain they pulled; not an
inch would it give; and at last Mullen ordered them to desist lest they
should break the rope.
Ever since Captain Powell had been brought so successfully to land, the
spirits of the party had risen to the highest pitch, for they regarded
the deliverance of the ladies as now certain. But at this check their
feelings underwent a change. Whatever it was that stopped the cable, all
hope of succoring those on the wreck must be abandoned, unless a way
could be found to remove the impediment.
“The line won’t hold out long, either,” said Mullen; “for the
force of the waves, with the dead weight of the cable attached to it,
will snap it in two.”
“It must have caught on the ship,” added Major Gordon. Then
suddenly, he continued in excited tones, “That brave girl sees it. She
leaves her companion. She is coming forward, clinging to the starboard
bulwarks. Heavens! the wave will reach her. No, it dashes to her feet,
and then recedes, as if awed by her high courage. She has gained the
bow. She stoops to examine the cable. She waves her hand to us. Pull
away. It yields. It comes. Merrily in with it, lads.”
The excitement of this scene had not been confined to Major Gordon. The
spectators followed every movement of Kate, with an absorption of
feeling it would be impossible to describe; and when finally the cable
began to move again, they burst simultaneously into a huzza. Even the
two swimmers, exhausted as they were, and still unable to stand, had
raised themselves on their elbows to watch the progress of Kate, and now
joined feebly in the shouts at her success.
The cable was hauled in without further obstruction. Once secured, and
made taut, the men proceeded, under the directions of Major Gordon, to
rig the traveling hammock. Two of the mainsail hoops were first taken
from the mast of the boat, however, and passed over the cable. The
hammock was then soon rigged. A long line was attached to one end of
this hammock, in order to be used for the ship, while a similar one was
fastened to the other end.
Two of the most agile of the party were now selected to go off to the
vessel. This they effected by traversing the cable, which they did with
an agility that only sailors possess. It would have made any other
description of person giddy to have crossed that awful abyss on a
support so slender and vibratory.
We will not detain the reader by a tiresome recital of the rest of that
eventful history. For, after the impromptu apparatus had been once
securely rigged, the deliverance of Kate and her aunt was merely an
affair of time.
Kate insisted on being left till the last. There was some difficulty in
getting her still terrified aunt to the bow of the ship, and more in
placing her safely in the hammock; but as her assistants had the
precaution to lash her tightly in, so that she should not, in a moment
of frenzied panic, leap from her frail couch, she reached the land
without further hindrance. Kate followed. With unmoved nerve she stepped
into the frail car, disposed herself so as to preserve its equilibrium,
and holding firmly to it, was borne ashore with a rapidity that seemed
almost like flying.
The two watermen now lost no time in abandoning the vessel. It was wise
that they made such haste, for, in less than half an hour, and before
the party had been able to prepare their boat for making sail again, the
stout old craft, succumbing at last to the angry surges, parted in the
middle, and rapidly broke into fragments.