CHAPTER VIII.

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.