Having no whale to hamper our movements, besides being well to windward of them all, we were perfectly comfortable as long as we kept to seaward of a certain line and the gale was not too fierce, so for the present all our attention was concentrated upon the labouring ships to leeward.The intervention of the land to windward kept the sea from rising to the awful height it attains under the pressure of a westerly, or a south-westerly gale, when, gathering momentum over an area extending right round the globe, it hurls itself upon those rugged shores.Still, it was bad enough.The fact of the gale striking across the regular set of the swell and current had the effect of making the sea irregular, short, and broken, which state of things is considered worse, as far as handling the ship goes, than a much heavier, longer, but more regular succession of waves.
As the devoted craft drifted helplessly down upon that frowning barrier, our excitement grew intense.Their inability to do anything but drift was only too well known by experience to every one of us, nor would it be possible for them to escape at all if they persisted in holding on much longer.And it was easy to see why they did so.While Paddy held on so far to leeward of them, and consequently in so much more imminent danger than they were, it would be derogatory in the highest degree to their reputation for seamanship and courage were they to slip and run before he did.He, however, showed no sign of doing so, although they all neared, with an accelerated drift, that point from whence no seamanship could deliver them, and where death inevitable, cruel, awaited them without hope of escape.The part of the coast upon which they were apparently driving was about as dangerous and impracticable as any in the world.A gigantic barrier of black, naked rock, extending for several hundred yards, rose sheer from the sea beneath, like the side of an ironclad, up to a height of seven or eight hundred feet.No outlying spurs of submerged fragments broke the immeasurable landward rush of the majestic waves towards the frowning face of this world-fragment.Fresh from their source, with all the impetus accumulated in their thousand-mile journey, they came apparently irresistible.
Against this perpendicular barrier they hurled themselves with a shock that vibrated far inland, and a roar that rose in a dominating diapason over the continuous thunder of the tempest-riven sea.High as was the summit of the cliff, the spray, hurled upwards by the tremendous impact, rose higher, so that the whole front of the great rock was veiled in filmy wreaths of foam, hiding its solidity from the seaward view.At either end of this vast, rampart nothing could be seen but a waste of breakers seething, hissing, like the foot of Niagara, and effectually concealing the CHEVAUX DE FRISE of rocks which produced such a vortex of tormented waters.
Towards this dreadful spot, then, the four vessels were being resistlessly driven, every moment seeing their chances of escape lessening to vanishing-point.Suddenly, as if panic-stricken, the ship nearest to the CHANCE gave a great sweep round on to the other tack, a few fluttering gleams aloft showing that even in that storm they were daring to set some sail.What the manoeuvre meant we knew very well--they had cut adrift from their whale, terrified at last beyond endurance into the belief that Paddy was going to sacrifice himself and his crew in the attempt to lure them with him to inevitable destruction.The other two did not hesitate longer.The example once set, they immediately followed; but it was for some time doubtful in the extreme whether their resolve was not taken too late to save them from destruction.We watched them with breathless interest, unable for a long time to satisfy ourselves that they were out of danger.But at last we saw them shortening sail again--a sure sign that they considered themselves, while the wind held in the same quarter, safe from going ashore at any rate, although there was still before them the prospect of a long struggle with the unrelenting ferocity of the weather down south.
Meanwhile, what of the daring Irishman and his old barrel of a ship? The fugitives once safe off the land, all our interest centred in the CHANCE.We watched her until she drew in so closely to the seething cauldron of breakers that it was only occasionally we could distinguish her outline; and the weather was becoming so thick and dirty, the light so bad, that we were reluctantly compelled to lose sight of her, although the skipper believed that he saw her in the midst of the turmoil of broken water at the western end of the mighty mass of perpendicular cliff before described.Happily for us, the wind veered to the westward, releasing us from the prospect of another enforced visit to the wild regions south of the island.It blew harder than ever; but being now a fair wind up the Straits, we fled before it, anchoring again in Port William before midnight.Here we were compelled to remain for a week; for after the gale blew itself out, the wind still hung in the same quarter, refusing to allow us to get back again to our cruising station.
