“As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair. There was a bell on board; and, as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now, nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. “Again, we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on shore increased. Men groaned and clasped their hands, women shrieked and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. I found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes, when I noticed that some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front. “I ran to him, held him back with both arms and implored the men with whom I had been speaking not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand! Another cry arose on shore, and, looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. “Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the calmly desperate man, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. ‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, ‘if my time is come, ’tis come. If ’tain’t, I’ll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all! Mates, make me ready! I’m a-going off!’ “I don’t know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw a hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then I saw him standing alone, in a seaman’s frock and trousers, a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist; another round his body, and several of the best men, holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet. “Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and, in a moment was buffeting with the water. Now, he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly.