position relative to the wreck for tacking, and having got
the ship round, gone to leeward of the wreck, and hove-to again with our
mainyard aback, I at once proceeded to put my ideas into practice. A
whip from the lee fore and main yardarms, with a standing bowline in the
end of that depending from the mainyard, and with a hauling-line
attached to it, was all that I required, after which I had the davit
tackles overhauled to their extremest limit, with a stout rope's-end
bent on to each fall just inside the sheave, so that the tackle blocks
should reach quite to the water even when the ship was taking the
heaviest weather roll.

Meanwhile, Roberts, in the gig, was faring capitally; he had succeeded
in getting up stern on, close under the lee quarter of the wreck, with a
line from her to the boat, and down this line the people were passing
pretty rapidly, our men keeping the line taut all the while by tugging
away steadily at the oars. Occasionally one, a little bolder than his
fellows, would leap overboard, when Roberts or one of the boat's crew
was always ready to seize him by the collar and drag him into the boat.
Everything seemed to be going on with the utmost regularity--one man,
whom I took to be the skipper of the wreck, evidently superintending
affairs on deck, while Roberts was attending them in the boat--yet it
was easy to see that not a moment was being lost, one man being no
sooner safe in the boat than another started to follow him. And,
indeed, there was evidently the utmost need for haste, for the wreck was
visibly settling before our eyes, every sea making a cleaner breach over
her than the last, while there were occasions when she was absolutely
buried, fore and aft, in a wild smother of white water, nothing of her
showing above the turmoil save the stumps of her spars, a small portion
of her poop skylight, and the davits with the fragments of the boats
hanging from them. On one of these occasions the boat in the starboard
davits--that one already mentioned as having had her bottom torn out--
was completely demolished, nothing of her remaining when the buried hulk
once more rose to the surface. When this was likely to happen the
people on board the wreck--warned by their skipper--clung for dear life
to whatever they could first lay hold of, while those in the gig,
similarly warned, letting go the rope, pulled out of reach of the
smother, only to back smartly up again the moment the danger was past