The carpenter came aft at this moment, balancing himself as best he could, for the deck was only a few degrees off the perpendicular.
"The leak is gaining fast," he said. "The hands are clean done up. There's land on the port bow."
The mate and the captain peered out through the dense wrack and haze. A great dark cliff loomed out upon the left, jagged, inhospitable, and menacing.
"We'd best run towards it," the mate said. "We've na chance o' saving the ship, but we might run her ashore."
"The ship will go down before you reach it," the carpenter remarked gloomily.
"Keep your heart up!" Miggs shouted, and then crawled along to the Girdlestones. "There is no hope for the ship but we may save ourselves," he said. "You'll have to take your turn at the pumps."
They followed him forward without a word. The crew, listless and weary, were grouped about the pumps. The feeble clanking sounded like the ticking of a watch amid the horrible uproar which filled the air.
"Buckle to again, boys!" cried Miggs. "These two will help you and the carpenter and mate."
Ezra and his father, the old man's grizzled locks flying wildly from his head, seized the rope and worked with the crew, hardly able to retain their foothold upon the slippery sloping decks. Miggs went down into the cabin. His behaviour during the gale had been most exemplary, but he recognized now that there was nothing more to be done, and, having thrown off his public responsibilities, he renewed his private peculiarities. He filled out nearly a tumblerful of raw rum and took it off at a gulp. Then he began to sing and made his way on deck in a very hilarious and reckless mood.
The vessel was still flying towards the rugged line of cliffs, which were now visible along the whole horizon, the great projection on the left being their culminating point. She was obviously sinking lower in the water, and she plunged in a heavy, sulky manner through the waves, instead of rising to them as she did before. The water was steadily gaining in her interior, and it was clear that she would not float long. The straining of the gale had increased the long-neglected rifts between her timbers, and no amount of pumping could save her. On the other hand, the sky had broken above them, and the wind was by no means so violent as before. The sun broke through between two great hurrying clouds, and turned all the waves to the brightest emerald green, with sparkling snow-white crests of foam. This sudden change and the brightness of the scene made their fate seem all the harder to the seamen aboard the sinking vessel.