Some of the passengers were frightened, and others professed an eagerness to engage in a “set-to.” Dr. Law, the half-pay naval surgeon, strode the deck with a drawn sword. He was filled with valor and Scotch whisky, and offered to wager any man a hundred guineas that he would be the first to board the enemy. Mrs. Commodore Lock waddled about uttering loud lamentations, and vowed that a friend of hers had been eaten alive by pirates. Nightfall closed down, however, before the brig could overtake the _Blenden Hall_, which surged before the wind with studding-sails spread. Captain Greig was in some doubt as to his reckoning, because of thick weather, when the ship had entered the lonely expanse of the South Atlantic, and he therefore steered for a sight of Tristan da Cunha in order to make certain of his position. He proceeded cautiously, but soon after breakfast, on July 23, 1820, breakers were descried close at hand. The wind died, and the ship was drifting. Anchors were let go, but the water was too deep to find holding-ground, and a dense fog obscured the sea. The ship struck in breakers so violent that the decks were swept, the boats smashed, and the houses filled with water. The masts were promptly cut away, but the _Blenden Hall_ was rapidly pounding to death with a broken back. All hands rushed forward and crowded upon the forecastle just before the rest of the ship was wrenched asunder and floated away. Two seamen had been killed by falling spars, but all the rest of the ship’s company, eighty souls of them, were alive and praying for rescue. After several hours of misery, a few sailors managed to knock a raft together and so reached the shore, which had disclosed itself as frightfully forbidding and desolate. The ship had been wrecked among the reefs of Inaccessible Island, one of the Tristan da Cunha group. By a sort of miracle the bow of the ship finally detached itself from among the rocks and washed toward the tiny strip of beach. Clinging to the stout timbers of the forecastle, all the survivors were safely delivered from the terrors of the sea. Through the first night they could only shiver in the rain and wonder what fate had befallen them. At dawn they began to explore the island, which appeared to be no more than a gigantic rock, black and savage, which towered into the clouds. Fresh water was found, but hunger menaced them. The first bit of flotsam from the wreck was a case of “Hibbert’s Celebrated Bottled Porter,” which was a beverage with a kick to it, and for the moment life looked not quite so dismal. On the beach were huge sea-lions, creatures twenty feet in length, but there was no way to slay and use them for food. Many sea-birds were killed with clubs and eaten raw, which postponed famine for the time.