Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/435

 Instinctively each member of the little crew drew towards those nearest and dearest.

"Get out the boat!" shouted Captain Slagg; but the men could not obey, for a heavy sea had anticipated them, and the little dingy was already careering shoreward, bottom up.

The next wave lifted the Gleam like a cork, and let her down on the rocks like fifty-six tons of lead. A flash of lightning revealed for a moment a range of frowning cliffs, as if to add horror to a scene that was already sufficiently appalling. Then all was again dark as Erebus.

In a frenzy of resolution Captain Rik seized an axe with the view of extemporising a raft, when the Gleam parted amidships, and we might almost say went out, leaving her crew struggling in the waves.

Sam had seized his wife with his strong left arm—he happened to be left-handed—and buffeted the waves with his right. Madge held on to Sammy with the power of maternal love. Sam was aware of that, and felt comparatively at ease in regard to his first-born.

Robin's arm had been round Letta's waist—unknown to himself or her!—when the Gleam, struck. It did not relax when he felt that they were afloat. Frank Hedley gallantly offered to take charge of Mrs. Langley.

Ebenezer Smith, being unable to swim, confessed