The last man evidently saw his danger, but was quite calm, although his end seemed near, as only about two hundred yards now intervened between the vessel and the rocky shore. He proceeded to lash a spar across the two water barrels, which he emptied and bunged up, and then stood ready to jump overboard with them, when the vessel struck. I also was on the alert with my coil of rope, following the vessel as she drifted slowly along the shore, till she neared a spur of cliff, which runs out near the watch-house, close to the homestead, and here she came in full contact with a mass of rock which shook her, crushed in her stem, and made her recoil. The next wave threw her back again, but luckily more steadily, so that I was enabled to throw my coil of rope down upon her deck from my coign of vantage. I quickly whipped the shore end round the stem of a huge furze bush, which grew within ten feet of the brink of the cliff, and to my joy found that the man had seized the end which I had thrown towards him. He stood amidship, being afraid to venture too close to the bows, as the next wave would doubtless ram the ship hard against the rocks again, and if he jumped now, he would simply be smashed to pieces between the rocks and the vessel. He waited, holding on to the coamings of the hatchway, which had been burst open, till the little ketch gave another tremendous leap upon the cruel rocks, and then as she recoiled he sprang to his feet, threw over his barrel life preserver, and without hesitation leaped overboard with the rope round his chest just beneath his arms. He swam, and I hauled, and as he mounted the next wave I slackened, or he might have been dashed to pieces, then on the wave breaking and running back, I hauled with all my might, and in a short time had him safe in my arms, and bore him amid the dashing spray and foam safely beyond danger. He was just able to stand, and that was all, for directly I had half dragged and half carried him up the cliffs to a grassy spot, he fell backwards insensible. He could not have been in the sea more than two minutes, yet he was terribly cut about, his hands being covered with blood; some of his fingers were cut to the bone. This was done when the first wave threw him against the rocks, when all depended upon his being able to hold on against the receding water. He did in his despair hold on, as he afterwards described it, "like a limpet," and thus though terribly battered he was saved, the sole survivor of his little crew.