Page:Loss of the Comet steam-boat on her passage from Inverness to Glasgow, on Friday the 21st October, 1825.pdf/8

 and consequently, had this advice been taken, it would have, in a few seconds, brought the Ayr to the very spot where many of the sufferers must have been struggling for life. He likewise urged that they would put up lights as signals of distress, but all his remonstrances were unheaded. He then shouted as loud as he was able, in the hope that he might be heard on shore, and that boats would put off to their assistance; and in effect it was this alarm which brought off the boat that saved seven of the Comet’s people. While thus giving the alarm, a man belonging to the vessel came up to him, in a menacing attitude, and ordered him to hold his peace, and go below. Finding, also, that it was of no use to address himself to the master, he went to the pilot, and entreated that he would steer for shore, unknown to the other, but was answered, that he could not do it, from what reason did not appear.

Still nothing was done, except by the two seamen of the Harmony, one of whom, as mentioned in our last, leaped into the boat at the stern, to go off to the rescue of the hapless victims, when the engine was, by some fatality set on, and the boat was capsized, and with difficulty the seamen got again on board the Ayr. Immediately thereafter, finding the vessel leaking much,