As to making sail, we had none, nor, if we had, could
we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land,
though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew
that when the boat came near the shore, she would be dashed in a thousand
pieces by the beach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in
the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards the shore, we
hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could
towards land.
What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal, we knew
not; the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of
expectation, was if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the mouth of
some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got
under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was
nothing of this appeared; but as we made nearer and nearer the shore, the
land looked more frightful than the sea.
After we had rowed, or rather driven, about a league and a half, as we
reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and
plainly bade us expect the _coup de grace_.
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