able to picture to yourself
my amazement and consternation when, a few minutes before six bells in
the middle watch, I became aware that the ship was adrift and fast
driving down toward the breakers!"

"How did you discover that the ship was adrift? Did you feel her cables
parting?" demanded the skipper.

"No," answered Purchase; "we never felt anything of that kind; but I
suddenly noticed that she was falling off and canting broadside-on to
the wind and sea, so I knew at once that something was wrong--that in
fact we had, in some incomprehensible way, struck adrift. I therefore
sang out to Thompson, the boatswain's mate, to pipe all hands to make
sail, intending to run her into the river, if possible. But by the time
that we had got the mizzen and fore-topmast staysail upon her, and were
loosing the main-topmast staysail, we were in the first line of
breakers; and a moment later she struck heavily. Then a big comber came
roaring in and broke over us, lifted us up, swept us shoreward a good
twenty fathoms, and we struck again, with such violence this time that
all three masts went over the side together. After that we had a very
bad half-hour, for every roller that came in swept clean over us,
carrying away everything that was movable, smashing the bulwarks flat,
and hammering the poor old barkie so furiously upon the sand that I
momentarily expected her to go to pieces under our feet. To add to our
difficulties, it was so intensely dark that we could not see where we
were; true, the water all round us was ablaze with phosphorescence,
which enabled us to discern that land of some sort lay about a couple of
cables' lengths to leeward of us, but it was quite indistinguishable,
and the water between us and it was leaping and spouting so furiously
that I did not feel justified in making any attempt to get the men
ashore, especially as we were then being swept so heavily that we had
all our work cut out to hold on for our lives. About half an hour
later, however, the tide turned and began to ebb, and then matters
improved a bit.

"But it was not until daybreak that we were able to do anything really
useful; and then all hands of us got to work and built a raft of sorts,
after which we got up a good supply of provisions and water, sails to
serve as tents, light line, and, in short, everything likely to be
useful, and managed to get ashore without very much difficulty. But
before I left the ship I had the cables hau