Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/27

Rh but the vessel herself was in so perilous a situation, that all on board had to attend to their own safety. She struck several times on the bar, and the sea made a fair breach over her; but they at length got under the north point, into Baker's bay. On the following day they saw a white man on the rocks, in the bay. Captain Thorne dispatched a boat, which returned with the blacksmith, who had been in the second boat sent to sound the channel. The account he gave of himself was, that shortly after the ship had passed them, the boat swamped; that the master of the shallop and the sailor were drowned, and that he was saved by the exertions of the Sandwich Islanders, who had dived several times to clear him of the lead line which was entangled round his legs. As the tide was ebbing strong, the boat drifted clear of the breakers; the islanders got a bucket and one of the oars; the blacksmith and one of the islanders took it in turns to scull the boat during the night. The other islander died in consequence of being benumbered with the cold, so that he could not exert himself as the others did. At day-light, they found themselves drifted to the northward of the river into a small sandy bay; they ran the boat on the beach and hauled her as high as their strength would allow them, and got their dead companion out. They then crossed the point towards the river, and entered the woods, where the islander lay down by the stump of a tree. The blacksmith left him, crossed the point, and arrived in sight of the river, where, to his inexpressible joy, he saw the ship at anchor in the bay.