CHAPTER XV.

Staines fell head-foremost into the sea with a heavy plunge.  Being an excellent swimmer, he struck out the moment he touched the water, and that arrested his dive, and brought him up with a slant, shocked and panting, drenched and confused.  The next moment he saw, as through a fog—­his eyes being full of water—­something fall from the ship.  He breasted the big waves, and swam towards it:  it rose on the top of a wave, and he saw it was a life-buoy.  Encumbered with wet clothes, he seemed impotent in the big waves; they threw him up so high, and down so low.

Almost exhausted, he got to the life-buoy, and clutched it with a fierce grasp and a wild cry of delight.  He got it over his head, and, placing his arms round the buoyant circle, stood with his breast and head out of water, gasping.

He now drew a long breath, and got his wet hair out of his eyes, already smarting with salt water, and, raising himself on the buoy, looked out for help.

He saw, to his great concern, the ship already at a distance.  She seemed to have flown, and she was still drifting fast away from him.

He saw no signs of help.  His heart began to turn as cold as his drenched body.  A horrible fear crossed him.

But presently he saw the weather-boat filled, and fall into the water; and then a wave rolled between him and the ship, and he only saw her topmast.

The next time he rose on a mighty wave he saw the boats together astern of the vessel, but not coming his way; and the gloom was thickening, the ship becoming indistinct, and all was doubt and horror.

A life of agony passed in a few minutes.

He rose and fell like a cork on the buoyant waves—­rose and fell, and saw nothing but the ship’s lights, now terribly distant.

But at last, as he rose and fell, he caught a few fitful glimpses of a smaller light rising and falling like himself.  “A boat!” he cried, and raising himself as high as he could, shouted, cried, implored for help.  He stretched his hands across the water.  “This way! this way!”

The light kept moving, but it came no nearer.  They had greatly underrated the drift.  The other boat had no light.

Minutes passed of suspense, hope, doubt, dismay, terror.  Those minutes seemed hours.

In the agony of suspense the quaking heart sent beads of sweat to the brow, though the body was immersed.

And the gloom deepened, and the cold waves flung him up to heaven with their giant arms, and then down again to hell:  and still that light, his only hope, was several hundred yards from him.

Only for a moment at a time could his eyeballs, straining with agony, catch this will-o’-the-wisp, the boat’s light.  It groped the sea up and down, but came no near.

When what seemed days of agony had passed, suddenly a rocket rose in the horizon—­so it seemed to him.