With a few powerful strokes of an axe, he broke off the top of the
pilot-house, bound two or three planks to it with ropes, and
dragged the mass to the bulwarks.
"The minute this goes," he then said to her, "you go after it, and
I follow. Keep still when you rise to the surface."
She left the shrouds, took hold of the planks at his side, and they
heaved the rude raft into the sea. In an instant she was seized
and whirled over the side; she instinctively held her breath, felt
a shock, felt herself swallowed up in an awful, fathomless
coldness, and then found herself floating below the huge towering
hull which slowly drifted away.
In another moment there was one at her side. "Lay your hand on my
shoulder," he said; and when she did so, swam for the raft, which
they soon reached. While she supported herself by one of the
planks he so arranged and bound together the pieces of timber that
in a short time they could climb upon them and rest, not much
washed by the waves. The ship drifted further and further, casting
a faint, though awful, glare over the sea, until the light was
suddenly extinguished, as the hull sank.
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