Captain Joe, his rubber suit wet and glistening as a shiny porpoise, his hair matted to his head, had now reached the outermost rock opposite the doomed craft, and stood near enough to catch every expression that crossed Baxter's face, who, white as chalk, was holding the tiller with all his strength, cap off, his blousy hair flying in the increasing gale, his mouth tight shut. Go ashore she must. It would be every man for himself then. No help would come,--no help COULD come. Captain Joe and his men would run for shelter as soon as the blow fell, and leave them to their fate. Men like Baxter are built to think this way. All these minutes--seconds, really,--Captain Joe stood bending forward, watching where the sloop would strike, his hands outstretched in the attitude of a ball-player awaiting a ball. If her nose should hit the sharp, square edges of one of the ten-ton blocks, God help her! She would split wide open like a melon. If by any chance her forefoot should be thrust into one of the many gaps between the enrockment blocks,--spaces from two to three feet wide,--and her bow timbers thus take the shock, there was a living chance to save her. A cry from Baxter, who had dropped the tiller and was scrambling over the stone-covered deck to the bowsprit, reached the captain's ears, but he never altered his position. What he was to do must be done surely. Baxter didn't count,--wasn't in the back of his head. There were plenty of willing hands to pick up Baxter and his men. Then a thing happened which, if I had not seen it, I would never have believed possible. The water cushion of the outsuck helped,--so did the huge roller which, in its blind rage, had underestimated the distance between its lift and the wide-open jaws of the rock,--as a maddened bull often underestimates the length of its thrust, its horns falling short of the matador. Whatever the cause, Captain Joe watched his chance, sprang to the outermost rock, and, bracing his great snubbing posts of legs against its edge, reversed his body, caught the wavering sloop on his broad shoulders, close under her bowsprit chains, and pushed back with all his might. Then began a struggle between the strength of the man and the lunge of the sea. With every succeeding onslaught, and before the savage roller could fully lift the staggering craft to hurl her to destruction, Captain Joe, with the help of the outsuck, would shove her back from the waiting rocks. This was repeated again and again,--the men in the rescuing yawl meanwhile bending every muscle to carry out the captain's commands. Sometimes his head was free enough to shout his orders, and sometimes both man and bow were smothered in suds. "Keep that fall clear!" would come his order "Stand ready to catch the yawl! Shut that--" here a souse would stop his breath,--"shut that furnace door! Do ye want the steam out of the b'iler?"--etc., etc.