On she comes; and now she is about half a mile distant from the rocks of Acton Chine. A man is heaving the lead in the fore-chains, but no soundings are there for more than forty fathoms; and borne over the water, and upward through the ambient air, the words of command came clearly to Morley's excited ear. Now the headsails shiver, heavily flap the jib, forestaysail, and foretopmast-staysail, round swings the main and maintopsail yards sharp to windward, and now she lies to, with her broadside to the shore. A quarter-boat is lowered; six men--Morley can count them--drop into her; something is thrown in, Morley knows not what, but a telescope would have revealed that it is a coil of stout rope. Now the oars are shipped. Bravo! she is shoved off, and the dripping blades flash in the last rays of the setting sun, as she darts from the ship's side, and sweeps round the promontory, and out of sight, towards the little cove, where Morley knew there was a landing-place and little strip of white sand. Morley waited nearly an hour--it seemed an age--after this. The ship still lay off the rocky shore, rolling heavily on the ground swell--so heavily, that the cracking flap of her loose canvas reached his ear sometimes. Once the mainyard was slued round, and sail was made on her for a little way, as if she had been drifted by wind and current rather too close in shore; but again the yard was backed, and, as before, she lay to, motionless and still. The sun had gone down, dusk was stealing over the land, and the warm saffron flush that bathed the western sea and sky became obscured by masses of copper-coloured clouds. Morley's heart beat wildly; he listened, but heard only the boom of the eternal breakers in the horrid grave that yawned below, and the screaming of the sea-birds around him. Suddenly he heard a cheer--the mingled shout of several voices--ring in mid-air above him. Oh, how his poor heart bounded at the sound! He looked upward, as he had done a hundred times before, but saw nothing, save the impending rock, for a time, till suddenly something appeared to swing over it, between him and the sky. Down it came, and soon he grasped it, and the rope to which it was attached. Wrapped round with a seaman's neckerchief, it proved to be a pint bottle, with a memorandum, written in pencil, twisted round the neck. "_Take a pull at the bottle, to give you strength, and lash the line round you; tie the knot well, for your life depends on it. Then pass up the word to hoist away, and never fear but we shall pull you up._" Such were the directions pencilled on the scrap of paper. With a sigh of joy and gratitude, Morley, faint, weary, and trembling in every limb and every nerve, uncorked the bottle, which contained brandy-grog--stiff half-and-half. As directed, he took a hearty "pull" thereat, for strength and coolness were alike necessary now.