them how to take advantage of the sea, and shifted the helm a little till the Aurungzebe fell off to larboard, and put the gap in the bulwarks on the lee.  So in a few minutes there it lay at a rope’s-end on the sheltered side, deep laden with thirty men, who were ill found with oars, and much worse found with skill to use them.  There were one or two, before they left, shouted to Elzevir and me to try to make us follow them; partly, I think, because they really liked Elzevir, and partly that they might have a sailor in the boat to direct them; but the others cast off and left us with a curse, saying that we might go and drown for obstinate Englishmen.

So we two were left alone on the brig, which kept drifting backwards slowly; but the pinnace was soon lost to sight, though we saw that they were rowing wild as soon as she passed out of the shelter of the ship, and that they had much ado to keep her head to the sea.

Then Elzevir went to the kicking-wheel, and beckoned me to help him, and between us we put the helm hard up.  I saw then that he had given up all hope of the wind shifting, and was trying to run her dead for the beach.

She was broached-to with her bows in the wind, but gradually paid off as the staysail filled, and so she headed straight for shore.  The November night had fallen, and it was very dark, only the white fringe of the breakers could be seen, and grew plainer as we drew closer to it.  The wind was blowing fiercer than ever, and the waves broke more fiercely nearer the shore.  They had lost their dirty yellow colour when the light died, and were rolling after us like great black mountains, with a combing white top that seemed as if they must overwhelm us every minute.  Twice they pooped us, and we were up to our waists in icy water, but still held to the wheel for our lives.

The white line was nearer to us now, and above all the rage of wind and sea I could hear the awful roar of the under-tow sucking back the pebbles on the beach.  The last time I could remember hearing that roar was when I lay, as a boy, one summer’s night ’twixt sleep and waking, in the little whitewashed bedroom at my aunt’s; and I wondered now if any sat before their inland hearths this night, and hearing that far distant roar, would throw another log on the fire, and thank God they were not fighting for their lives in Moonfleet Bay.  I could picture all that was going on this night on the beach—­how Ratsey and the landers would have sighted the Aurungzebe, perhaps at noon, perhaps before, and knew she was embayed, and nothing could save her but the wind drawing to east.  But the wind would hold pinned in the south, and they would see sail after sail blown off her, and watch her wear and wear, and every time come nearer in; and the talk would run through the street that there was a ship could not weather the Snout, and must come ashore by sundown.  Then half the village would be gathered on the beach, with the men ready to risk their lives for ours, and in no wise wishing for the ship to be wrecked; yet anxious not to lose their chance of booty, if Providence should rule that wrecked she must be.  And I knew Ratsey would be there, and Damen, Tewkesbury, and Laver, and like enough Parson Glennie, and perhaps—­and at that perhaps, my thoughts came back to where we were, for I heard Elzevir speaking to me: