An old quarter-master kept his station at the fourth.
The roaring of the seas on the rocks, with the howling of the wind, were
dreadful; but the sight was more dreadful than the noise. For a few
moments I shut my eyes, but anxiety forced me to open them again. As
near as I could judge, we were not twenty yards from the rocks, at the
time that the ship passed abreast of them. We were in the midst of the
foam, which boiled around us; and as the ship was driven nearer to them,
and careened with the wave, I thought that our main-yard-arm would have
touched the rock; and at this moment a gust of wind came on, which laid
the ship on her beam-ends, and checked her progress through the water,
while the accumulated noise was deafening. A few moments more the ship
dragged on, another wave dashed over her and spent itself upon the
rocks, while the spray was dashed back from them, and returned upon the
decks. The main rock was within ten yards of her counter, when another
gust of wind laid us on our beam-ends, the foresail and mainsail split,
and were blown clean out of the bolt-ropes--the ship righted, trembling
fore and aft. I looked astern: the rocks were to windward on our
quarter, and we were safe. I thought at the time, that the ship,
relieved of her courses, and again lifting over the waves, was not a bad
similitude of the relief felt by us all at that moment; and, like her,
we trembled as we panted with the sudden reaction, and felt the removal
of the intense anxiety which oppressed our breasts.
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