Every eye was intent, every bosom drew a deep breath, as the next great billow rose under the ship, and tossed her up to the tempest. They had brought her as near to the wind as they dared, so as still to have steerage way on her, and she took the whole force of the surge on her port bow, not on her beam, as the people on shore had feared. The sea broke bodily over her, and she staggered back from the blow, and shook through every timber, then leaped and lurched down the terrible valley, but still, with the good sail holding. She was under noble seamanship, that was clear to every one, and herself a noble fabric. If she could but surmount two billows more, without falling off from the wind, within three points of which her head lay, most of the crew might be rescued. Already a stout galley, manned with ten oars, was coming out of Christchurch Harbour, dancing like a cork on the waves, though sheltered by the headland. Our ship rode over the next billow gallantly; it was a wave that had some moderation, and the lungs of the gale for the moment were panting, just as she topped the comb of it. “Hurrah!” shouted the men ashore; “By God, sheʼll do it yet!” By God alone could she do it. But the Father saw not fit; the third billow was the largest of all that had yet rolled up from the ocean. Beam–end on she clomb the mountain, heeling over heavily, showing to the shore her deck–seams,—even the companion–finial, and the poor things clinging there; a wail broke from them as the great sea struck her, and swept away half a score of them. “Nowʼs your chance, men. D—n your eyes! She wonʼt hang there two minutes. Out with the boats you—— lubbers. Look sharp, and be d—d to you.” The ancient pilot, Thwarthawse, dancing and stamping, his blue jacket flapping in the wind, and his face of the deepest plum colour, roared to windward his whirlwind of oaths up an old split trumpet, down which the wind came bellowing harder than his voice went up it. “Stow that, Jacob!” cried an old Scotchman, survivor of many a wreck; “can ye nae see his reverence, mon? Itʼs an unco thing for an auld mon like you to swear at your mates in their shrouds, chap. I ken the skipper of that there ship, and heʼs no lubber, no more than I be.” Sandy Macbride was known to fear God, and to have fifty pounds in the savings bank. Therefore no one flouted him. “Youʼre right, Mac; youʼre right, by George!” cried Pell. “What a glorious fellow! I can see him there holding on by the stanchion, giving his orders as coolly as if for the cabin dinner. I could die with that man.” The tear in Octavius Pellʼs right eye compelled him to shift the glass a bit. He was just the man who would have done even as that captain did.