As he spoke, Captain Powell raised that instrument to his mouth, and shouted, in broken intervals, that all on board had been lost except three; that they had no boats, nor anybody to man them if they had; and that the ladies could never reach shore alive, if they jumped overboard, even lashed to a spar. He concluded by saying— “Haven’t you a whale-boat?” Again Major Gordon attempted to make himself audible. But though he shouted again and again, and with a Stentor’s voice, it was evident that his accents were not heard on the wreck. Two or three of the others made a similar essay, but with no better success. “We can’t hear a word,” shouted Captain Powell. “The ship won’t hold together much longer. Get a whale-boat, for the love of God, or we are lost.” “Alas!” said Major Gordon, turning to Mullen, “there’s no such thing within ten miles—is there?” “No,” interrupted Mullen, shaking his head. “But something must be done. I think a strong man might swim out to the wreck with a rope.” “Swim out with a rope!” “Yes!” “What good would that do?” “If,” replied the Major, “we had a line out to the ship, it might be used to draw a cable from her ashore; and if there was a cable hauled taut, I’m sure I could rig a sort of sliding hammock, by which to land the ladies: for the hammock could be made to travel to and fro by lines attached to either end.” Mullen regarded the speaker in mute admiration for a full minute before he spoke. “I always said,” he replied, at last, “that it was everything to be a scollard. Now I might have puzzled over this matter for a week, yet never have thought of such a way as that. It would do, sartainly, if we only had the line out.” “If I had a mortar here, and tools, I could fix it so as to throw a line over the wreck at once.” “A musket wouldn’t do,” said Mullen, musingly; “even one with so big a bore as a ‘Queen Anne.’ I’ve a capital one in the boat.” “It couldn’t throw a line strong enough. The strain of the cable, when the latter came to be dragged through the water, would snap it immediately.” “More’s the pity,” answered Mullen, as if reluctantly abandoning a scheme, which he would have liked to have seen tried for its novelty, at least, “for I see we’ll have to give the thing up.” “Give it up!” cried the Major. “Yes!” “Can’t a man swim off, as I proposed?” Mullen shook his head. “I’m not so sure,” stoutly said Major Gordon. “It would be tempting death.” The men had been eagerly listening to this conversation. The scheme of Major Gordon, to judge by the expression of their faces, had filled them with not less admiration than it had Mullen. The Major now turned to each countenance in succession, to see if any listener thought more favorably than Mullen of the feasibility of swimming off with a line. But the scrutiny was in vain.