There were two boats in the water, and along-side of the brig.  One was the Swash’s yawl, a small but convenient craft, while the other was much larger, fitted with a sail, and had all the appearance of having been built to withstand breezes and seas.  Mulford felt perfectly satisfied, the moment he saw this boat, which had come into the haven in tow of the schooner, that it had been originally in the service of the light-house keeper.  As there was a very general desire among those on the quarter-deck to go to the assistance of the schooner, Spike ordered both boats manned, jumping into the yawl himself, accompanied by Don Juan Montefalderon, and telling Mulford to follow with the larger craft, bringing with him as many of the females as might choose to accompany him.  As Mrs. Budd thought it incumbent on her to be active in such a scene, all did go, including Biddy, though with great reluctance on the part of Rose.

With the buoy for a guide, Spike had no difficulty in finding the spot where the schooner lay.  She had scarcely shifted her berth in the least, there having been no time for her even to swing to the gust, but she had probably cap-sized at the first blast, filled, and gone down instantly.  The water was nearly as clear as the calm, mild atmosphere of the tropics; and it was almost as easy to discern the vessel, and all her hamper, as if she lay on a beach.  She had sunk as she filled, or on her side, and still continued in that position.  As the water was little more than three fathoms deep, the upper side was submerged but a few inches, and her yard-arms would have been out of the water, but for the circumstance that the yards had canted under the pressure.

At first, no sign was seen of any of those who had been on board this ill-fated schooner when she went down.  It was known that twenty-one souls were in her, including the man and the boy who had belonged to the light-house.  As the boat moved slowly over this sad ruin, however, a horrible and startling spectacle came in view.  Two bodies were seen, within a few feet of the surface of the water, one grasped in the arms of the other, in the gripe of despair.  The man held in the grasp, was kept beneath the water solely by the death-lock of his companion, who was himself held where he floated, by the circumstance that one of his feet was entangled in a rope.  The struggle could not have been long over, for the two bodies were slowly settling toward the bottom when first seen.  It is probable that both these men had more than once risen to the surface in their dreadful struggle.  Spike seized a boat-hook, and made an effort to catch the clothes of the nearest body, but ineffectually, both sinking to the sands beneath, lifeless, and without motion.  There being no sharks in sight, Mulford volunteered to dive and fasten a line to one of these unfortunate men, whom Don Juan declared at once was the schooner’s captain.  Some little time was lost in procuring a lead-line from the brig, when the lead was dropped