The wreck, when I reached my post of observation in the rigging, was on our weather-bow, not more than twice our own length from us; and the barque, with her way already somewhat retarded by the backing of the main-topsail and the putting down of the helm, was slowly forging up to it, with her bows inclining toward the exact spot where the nine men were still huddled together in the main rigging, anxiously watching our approach and wondering what we were about to do. They saw that San Domingo was preparing to heave them a rope's-end; but that did not very greatly enlighten them until Joe and Sir Edgar each raised a life-buoy to the rail, and prepared to throw it overboard. Then they got an inkling of our intent; and a feeble shout went up from among them. Slowly, and more slowly still, the barque continued to forge ahead; and I began to fear that, in my anxiety to avoid an actual collision with the wreck, I had backed my topsail a second or two too soon, and that we should not, after all, get near enough to her to accomplish the rescue. Still, we had not wholly lost our way; and foot by foot--or rather, inch by inch--we continued to creep nearer and nearer to the wreck, until the negro, on the end of his spar, was soaring and swooping wildly within some fifty feet of the group of half-drowned men; and then our way stopped. This was the moment that San Domingo had been waiting for. Watching his opportunity, he seized upon the instant when the wreck and ourselves were both sunk in the trough of a sea, and therefore comparatively sheltered from the wind, when, with a single powerful swing of the coil round his head, he sent it whizzing straight and fair in among the group who were anxiously waiting for it. "Get as far aft as you can, and then haul away upon the line!" I shouted.