About midnight, after pulling desperately for three hours, my strength was quite gone, and I had to give up the oar. Captain Robbins confessed himself in a very little better state, and, it being impossible for the boatmen to do more than keep the boat stationary, and that only for a little time longer, there remained no expedient but to keep off before the wind, in the hope of still falling in with the ship. We knew that the Tigris was on the starboard tack when we left her, and, as she would certainly endeavour to keep as close in with the land as possible, there was a remaining chance that she had wore ship to keep off Henlopen, and might be heading up about north-north-east, and laying athwart the mouth of the bay. This left us just a chance—a ray of hope; and it had now become absolutely necessary to endeavour to profit by it.

The two Cape May men pulled the boat round, and kept her just ahead of the seas, as far as it was in their power; very light touches of the oars sufficing for this, where it could be done at all. Occasionally, however, one of those chasing waves would come after us, at a racer's speed, invariably breaking at such instants, and frequently half-filling the boat. This gave us new employment, Rupert and myself being kept quite half the time bailing. No occupation, notwithstanding the danger, could prevent me from looking about the cauldron of angry waters, in quest of the ship. Fifty times did I fancy I saw her, and as often did the delusive idea end in disappointment. The waste of dark waters, relieved by the gleaming of the combing seas, alone met the senses. The wind blew directly down the estuary, and, in crossing its mouth, we found too much swell to receive it on our beam, and were soon compelled, most reluctantly though it was, to keep dead away to prevent swamping. This painful state of expectation may have lasted half an hour, the boat sometimes seeming ready to fly out of the water, as it drifted before the gale, when Rupert unexpectedly called out that he saw the ship!

There she was, sure enough, with her head to the northward and eastward, struggling along through the raging waters, under her fore and main-top-sails, close-reefed, and reefed courses, evidently clinging to the land as close as she could, both to hold her own and to make good weather. It was barely light enough to ascertain these facts, though the ship was not a cable's length from us when first discovered. Unfortunately, she was dead to leeward of us, and was drawing ahead so fast as to leave the probability she would forereach upon us, unless we took to all our oars. This was done as soon as possible, and away we went, at a rapid rate, aiming to shoot directly beneath the Tigris's lee-quarter, so as to round-to under shelter of her hull, there to receive a rope.

We pulled like giants. Three several times the water slapped into us, rendering the boat more and more heavy; but Captain Bobbins told us to pull on, every moment being precious. As I did not look round—could not well, indeed—I saw no more of the ship until I got a sudden glimpse of her dark hull, within a hundred feet of us, surging ahead in the manner in which vessels at sea seem to take sudden starts that carry them forward at twice their former apparent speed. Captain Robbins had begun to hail, the instant he thought himself near enough, or at the distance of a hundred yards; but what was the human voice amid the music of the winds striking the various cords, and I may add chords, in the mazes of a square-rigged vessel's hamper, accompanied by the base of the roaring ocean! Heavens! what a feeling of despair was that, when the novel thought suggested itself almost simultaneously to our minds, that we should not make ourselves heard! I say simultaneously, for at the same instant the whole five of us set up a common, desperate shout to alarm those who were so near us, and who might easily save us from the most dreadful of all deaths—starvation at sea. I presume the fearful manner in which we struggled at the oars diminished the effect of our voices, while the effort to raise a noise lessened our power with the oars. We were already to leeward of the ship, though nearly in her wake, and our only chance now was to over take her. The captain called out to us to pull for life or death, and pull we did. So frantic were our efforts, that I really think we should have succeeded, had not a sea come on board us, and filled us to the thwarts. There remained no alternative but to keep dead away, and to bail for our lives.

I confess I felt scalding tears gush down my cheeks, as I gazed at the dark mass of the ship just before it was swallowed up in the gloom. This soon occurred, and then, I make no doubt, every man in the boat considered himself as hopelessly lost. We continued to bail, notwithstanding; and, using hats, gourds, pots and pails, soon cleared the boat, though it was done with no other seeming object than to avert immediate death. I heard one of the Cape May men pray. The name of his wife mingled with his petitions to God. As for poor Captain Robbins, who had so recently been in another scene of equal danger in a boat, he remained silent, seemingly submissive to the decrees of Providence.

In this state we must have drifted a league dead before the wind, the Cape May men keeping their eyes on the light, which was just sinking below the horizon, while the rest of us were gazing seaward in ominous expectation of what awaited us in that direction, when the hail of "Boat ahoy!" sounded like the last trumpet in our ears. A schooner was passing our track, keeping a little off, and got so near as to allow us to be seen, though, owing to a remark about the light which drew all eyes to windward, not a soul of us saw her. It was too late to avert the blow, for the hail had hardly reached us, when the schooner's cut-water came down upon our little craft, and buried it in the sea as if it had been lead. At such moments men do not think, but act. I caught at a bob-stay, and missed it.