The ill-fated Mercury had been pitched headforemost with such tremendous force upon the bank, that her prow was buried deep in the sands, and her stern lifted, revealing one-third of the length of her keel. Her masts had been snapped short off, and with all their sails and shrouds had fallen forward upon the sand. And there she lay stranded, broken, helpless—exposed to every assault of wind and wave! At intervals a heavy sea broke over her. A nearer approach showed some half-dozen haggard wretches, the remnant of her unfortunate crew, assembled aft, holding on for dear life to the taffrail, yet scarcely able to keep their hold, with their hair and garments streaming in the wind. They were seen to wave signals of entreaty to the advancing ship. But a horrible sea raged between the brig and the sand-bank! To have approached much nearer the wreck, would have been inevitably to share its fate! To have put out a boat would have been madness!—no boat could have lived a moment in such a sea. Yet the Queen Charlotte could not, would not, pass her by. The only thing to do then, was to wear and heave to, to watch and seize an opportunity of rendering aid, if perchance the winds and waves should subside in time to send out boats to her. But it was a terrible thing to lay there inactive, and behold sea after sea advance and break over that bound and disabled vessel!—at every advance shaking her hull almost in pieces—at every retreat carrying off some portion of her rigging or cargo. And it was more terrible still to behold those half-dozen fellow-creatures, clinging in desperation to their frail support! At last a huge wave arose and rearing itself, like a moving cliff crested with foam, advanced upon the doomed wreck! At this appalling sight, all on board the brig held their breath for very awe. The mountain wave reached and broke over the sand-bank. And the ship was swamped! A simultaneous cry of horror arose from the brig! The next moment fragments of the shattered ship strewed the sea, and from amid the boiling hell of waters arose three struggling wretches. One held on to a broken spar that kept him afloat. Two others, for a single instant, strove for the possession of a plank that both had seized, but which was not sufficient to sustain more than one; then the stronger of the two, whom Lord Montressor thought he recognized as Victoire L’Orient, freeing his hand, struck off the weaker, who immediately sank, but in the impetuosity of this cruel blow he also lost his own hold upon the plank, and disappeared in the whirlpool of waters. The third man—the sole survivor of the wreck, clinging desperately to the fragment of broken spar, and each moment growing more incapable of retaining his hold, was dashed hither and thither, at the mercy of the waves.