"See anything of him, sir?" at length demanded the man who had previously spoken.
"Not just at this moment," answered I, "but I expect we shall find him hanging on to the life-buoy. Ay, there is the buoy," I continued, as the small white circle swung up on the breast of a sea, "and--yes--yes--there is the man clinging to it. Give way, bullies; another five minutes and we shall have him!"
The two men toiled at their oars with superhuman energy, their laboured breathing and the sweat that literally poured off them bearing eloquent witness to their exertions, while the boat "squashed" viciously into every sea that met her, flinging the spray right aft and drenching us to the skin; yet despite it all we seemed to make little or no headway, and when a full five minutes had sped we were still quite fifty fathoms away from the man. Then I suddenly lost sight of the poor fellow. He was clinging to the buoy when it sank behind the crest of an on-coming sea; but when the buoy swept into view again on the next slope it was empty.
At this trying moment the sky suddenly darkened into a deeper and more menacing gloom, and the next moment I saw a dense rain-squall sweeping along toward us. The men noticed it too, and one of them anxiously inquired--
"How fur is he off now, Mr. Burt? Is there any chance of our gettin' hold of him afore that squall strikes us?"
"If we don't I doubt it's all up with un, for I can't keep on at this here game much longer," muttered the other.
"Try another spurt, lads!" I exclaimed; "another dozen strokes will do it!"
My little crew responded gallantly to my adjuration; but in another moment the squall was upon us, the rain descending like a cataract, and in an instant everything beyond the length of the boat was hidden by the dense curtain of falling water.
The rain lasted for nearly ten minutes, beating the sea down until its surface was like oil, and the men availed themselves of the opportunity to get a little more way upon the boat; but presently I bade them cease pulling, feeling convinced that we must be quite close to the buoy, although I could see nothing of it. Then the rain suddenly ceased, and the wind with it, revealing the buoy right under the boat's bows; but, alas, the man was gone! We recovered the buoy, and then all stood up to see if we could discover our missing shipmate, and presently we saw his cap floating some ten fathoms away; but the owner had vanished. We shouted several times, thinking that possibly the poor fellow might have been washed off the buoy, yet be still afloat somewhere not far distant, although undistinguishable in the rapidly deepening gloom; but no answer came. Then I suddenly bethought me that night and storm were together closing down upon us, and I turned to look for the brig. There she was, just distinguishable in the thickness to leeward, with far too much of her canvas still blowing loose from her yards and stays, and I turned suddenly sick with anxiety for our own fate as I noticed that she was nearly three miles away.