Anxiety, the
most intense, took possession of us all. At the very moment when
the ship was descending into the fathomless abyss, the raft, our
only hope of safety, was drifting off before our eyes. Two of
the sailors and an apprentice, beside themselves with terror,
threw themselves headlong into the sea; but it was evident from
the very first that they were quite powerless to combat the winds
and waves. Escape was impossible; they could neither reach the
raft, nor return to the ship. Curtis tied a rope round his waist
and tried to swim to their assistance; but long before he could
reach them the unfortunate men, after a vain struggle for life,
sank below the waves and were seen no more. Curtis, bruised and
beaten with the surf that raged about the mast-heads, was hauled
back to the ship.
Meantime, Dowlas and his men, by means of some spars which they
used as oars, were exerting themselves to bring back the raft,
which had drifted about two cables-lengths away; but, in spite of
all their efforts, it was fully an hour,--an hour which seemed to
us, waiting as we were with the water up to the level of the top-
masts, like an eternity--before they succeeded in bringing the
raft alongside, and lashing it once again to the "Chancellor's"
main-mast.
Not a moment was then to be lost. The waves were eddying like a
whirlpool around the submerged vessel, and numbers of enormous
air-bubbles were rising to the surface of the water.
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