ship struck.

"'Twill be touch and go indeed, Falcon," observed the captain (for I had
clung to the belaying pins, close to them for the last half-hour that
the mainsail had been set). "Come aft, you and I must take the helm.
We shall want _nerve_ there, and only there, now."

The captain and first lieutenant went aft, and took the forespokes of
the wheel, and O'Brien, at a sign made by the captain, laid hold of the
spokes behind him. An old quarter-master kept his station at the
fourth. The roaring of the sea on the rocks, with the howling of the
wind, were dreadful; but the sight was more dreadful than the noise.
For a few moments I shut my eyes, but anxiety forced me to open them
again. As near as I could judge, we were not twenty yards from the
rocks, at the time that the ship passed abreast of them. We were in the
midst of the foam, which boiled around us; and as the ship was driven
nearer to them, and careened with the wave, I thought that our main
yard-arm would have touched the rock; and at this moment a gust of wind
came on which laid the ship on her beam-ends, and checked her progress
through the water, while the accumulated noise was deafening. A few
moments more the ship dragged on, another wave dashed over her and spent
itself upon the rocks, while the spray was dashed back from them, and
returned upon the decks. The main rock was within ten yards of her
counter, when another gust of wind laid us on our beam-ends; the
foresail and mainsail split, and were blown clean out of the
bolt-ropes--the ship righted, trembling fore and aft. I looked
astern:--the rocks were to windward on our quarter, and we were safe. I
thought at the time, that the ship, relieved of her courses, and again
lifting over the waves, was not a bad similitude of the relief felt by
us all at that moment; and, like her, we trembled as we panted with the
sudden reaction, and felt the removal of the intense anxiety which
oppressed our breasts.

The captain resigned the helm, and walked aft to look at the point,
which was now broad on the weather quarter. In a minute or two, he
desired Mr Falcon to get new sails up and bend them, and then went
below to his cabin. I am sure it was to thank God for our deliverance:
I did most fervently, not only then, but when I went to my hammock at
night. We were now comparatively safe--in a few hours completely so:
for, strange to say, immediately after we had weathered the rocks, the
gale aba