At the instant of saying this I made a spring from off the height of the gratings on which I stood, and got into the fore-chains, the boat then being on the level of that platform; and as actively as a cat, for few young fellows had nimbler limbs, I scrambled over the bulwark on to the deck, just in time to escape a huge fold of rushing water that foamed sheer through the chains with a spite and weight that must instantly have settled my business for me.

I was in the act of running along the deck to where the lad stood—that is to say, a little forward of the gangway, not doubting that the others of my crew whom I had called upon were following with as much alertness as I had exhibited, when I felt a shock as of a thump pass through the barque.

'She has struck!' thought I.

But hardly was I sensible of this tremor through the vessel, when there arose a wild and dreadful cry from alongside—heavenly God! how am I to describe that shocking noise of human distress? I fled to the rail and looked over; it was all boiling water under me, with just a sight of the black line of the gunwale or of the keel of the lifeboat; but there was such a raging of foam, such a thickness of seething yeast smoking into the hurricane as though some volcanic eruption had happened right under the barque, filling the air with steam, that there was nothing whatever to be seen saving just that dark glance of keel or gunwale, as I have said, which, however, vanished as I looked in the depth of the hissing spumy smother. I knew by this that the lifeboat must have been staved and filled by a sudden fling of her against the massive sides of the barque; for she was a self-righting craft, and, though she might have thrown every soul in her out as she rolled over, yet she would have rose buoyant again, emptying herself as she leapt to the surge, and there she would have been alongside, without a living creature in her if you will, but a good boat, and riding stoutly to her cable. But she had been stove, and now she was gone!

The blazing tar-barrel on the main-deck enabled me to see my way to rush aft. I cried to the lad as I sped: 'The boat is staved; all hands of her are overboard and drowning! Heave ropes' ends over the side! fling life-buoys!' And thus shouting, scarcely knowing, indeed, what I called out, so confounded was I, so shocked, so horrified, so heartbroken, I may say, by the suddenness and the fearfulness of this disaster, I reached the quarter of the barque and overhung it; but I could see nothing. The cloudy boiling rose and fell, and with every mighty drop of the great square 

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