I slipped down a rope, and dropped into the boat, taking my place with a steering oar at the stern, and we shot away through the green water.  The men yet lined the rail watching us enviously, although Watkins’ voice began roaring out orders.  Dorothy wraved her hand, which I acknowledged by lifting my cap.  The schooner, with her sharp cutwater and graceful proportions made so fair a sea picture, outlined against the blue haze, I found it difficult to remove my gaze, but finally my thought concentrated on the work ahead, and I turned to urge the oarsmen to a quicker stroke.

The distance was greater than I had supposed it to be from the deck of the Santa Marie, nor did the dark cloud slowly poking up above the sea to the southeast ease my anxiety to get this task over with, before a storm broke.  The Namur proved to be a more complete wreck than our distant view had revealed, and lying in a more precarious position.  While the sea was not high, or dangerous, beyond the headland, the charging billows there broke in foam and were already playing havoc with the stranded vessel, smashing great spars, entangled amid canvas and cordage, about so as to render our approach extremely perilous.  We were some time seeking a place where we might make fast, but finally nosed our way in behind the shelter of a huge boom, held steady by a splinter of rock, until Harwood got the hank of his boat hook in the after-chains, and hung on.  It was no pleasant job getting aboard, but ordering Haines to accompany me, and the others to lie by in the lee of the boom, I made use of a dangling backstay, and thus hauled myself up to a reasonably secure footing.  The fellow joined me breathless, and together we perched on the rail to gain view of the deck.

It was a distressing, hopeless sight, the vessel rising before us like the roof of a house, the deck planks stove in, a horrible jumble of running rigging, booms and spars, blocking the way forward.  Aft it was clearer, the top-hamper of the after mast having fallen overboard, smashing a small boat as it fell, but leaving the deck space free.  There were three bodies tangled in the wreckage within our sight, crushed out of all human resemblance, and the face of a negro, caught beneath the ruins of the galley, seemed to grin back at me in death.  Every timber groaned as the waves struck, and rocked the sodden mass, and I had no doubt but that the vessel had already broken in two.  I heard Haines utter an oath.

“By God, sir, did you ever see the like!  She can’t hang on here.”

“Not, long surely,” I admitted.  “A bit more sea, and she breaks into kindling wood.  If there is any salvage aboard, my man, it will be done in the next twenty minutes.”

“There is no hope o’ gittin’ forrard, sir—­look at that damn litter, an’—­an’ them dead men.”

“It isn’t forward we need to go, Haines; it’s aft into the cabin, and that seems a clear enough passage—­only the water down there may be too deep.  Let’s make a try of it.”