It was barely light enough to ascertain these
facts, though the ship was not a cable's length from us when first
discovered. Unfortunately, she was dead to leeward of us, and was
drawing ahead so fast as to leave the probability she would forereach
upon us, unless we took to all our oars. This was done as soon as
possible, and away we went, at a rapid rate, aiming to shoot directly
beneath the Tigris's lee-quarter, so as to round-to under shelter of
her hull, there to receive a rope.
We pulled like giants. Three several times the water slapped into us,
rendering the boat more and more heavy; but Captain Bobbins told us to
pull on, every moment being precious. As I did not look
round--_could_ not well, indeed--I saw no more of the ship until
I got a sudden glimpse of her dark hull, within a hundred feet of us,
surging ahead in the manner in which vessels at sea seem to take
sudden starts that carry them forward at twice their former apparent
speed. Captain Robbins had begun to hail, the instant he thought
himself near enough, or at the distance of a hundred yards; but what
was the human voice amid the music of the winds striking the various
cords, and I may add _chords_, in the mazes of a square-rigged
vessel's hamper, accompanied by the base of the roaring ocean!
Heavens! what a feeling of despair was that, when the novel thought
suggested itself almost simultaneously to our minds, that we should
not make ourselves heard! I say simultaneously, for at the same
instant the whole five of us set up a common, desperate shout to alarm
those who were so near us, and who might easily save us from the most
dreadful of all deaths--starvation at sea.
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