“Keep her so, Moses.  You can help with your paddle, Nigel, while I get ready our anchor.”

“Anchor!” exclaimed our hero in amazement—­obeying orders, however, at the same moment.

The hermit either did not hear the exclamation or did not care to notice it.  He quickly collected the mast and sails, with a couple of boat-hooks and all the paddles excepting two single ones.  These he bound together by means of the sheets and halyards, attached the whole to a hawser,—­one end of which passed through an iron ring at the bow—­and tossed it into the sea—­paying out the hawser rapidly at the same time so as to put a few yards between them and their floating anchor—­if it may be so called—­in the lee of which they prepared to ride out the gale.

It was well that they had taken the precaution to put on their waterproofs before the gale began, because, while turned head to wind every breaking wave swept right over their heads, and even now while under the lee of the floating anchor they were for some time almost continually overwhelmed by thick spray.  Being, however, set free from the necessity of keeping their tiny craft in position, they all bowed their heads on the deck, sheltered their faces in their hands and awaited the end!

Whilst in this attitude—­so like to that of prayer—­Nigel almost naturally thought of Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand, and lifted his soul to God; for, amid the roaring of the gale, the flashes of lightning, the appalling thunder, the feeling that he was in reality all but under the waves and the knowledge that the proverbial plank between him and death was of the very thinnest description, a sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he had never before experienced, crept over him.  What the thoughts of the hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about himself; but Moses was not so reticent, for he afterwards remarked that he had often been caught by gales while in the canoe, and had been attached for hours to their floating anchor, but that “dat was out ob sight de wust bust ob wedder dey’d had since dey come to lib at Krakatoa, an’ he had bery nigh giben up in despair!”

The use of the floating breakwater was to meet the full force of the seas and break them just before they reached the canoe.  In spite of this some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off the stooping figures like rain from a duck’s back.  Of course a good deal got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, “was not’ing to speak ob.”

Thus they lay tossing in the midst of the raging foam for several hours.  Now and then each would raise his head a little to see that the rope held fast, but was glad to lower it again.  They hardly knew when day broke.  It was so slow in coming, and so gloomy and dark when it did come, that the glare of the lightning-flash seemed more cheerful.