He was a light and powerful
swimmer, and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore
immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by
a false phantom, to continue his efforts, although they did not advance
him a foot. The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with
careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a
glance; and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice
that was driven over the struggling victim to the ears of his shipmates
on the sands:
"Sheer to port, and clear the undertow! Sheer to the southward!"
Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured by
terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly yielded to the
call, and gradually changed his direction, until his face was once more
turned towards the vessel. The current swept him diagonally by the
rocks, and he was forced into an eddy, where he had nothing to contend
against but the waves, whose violence was much broken by the wreck. In
this state, he continued still to struggle, but with a force that was
too much weakened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around
him for a rope, but all had gone over with the spars, or been swept away
by the waves. At this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of
the desperate Dillon. Calm and inured to horrors as was the veteran
seaman, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow, to exclude the
look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment afterwards, he
removed the rigid member, he beheld the sinking form of the victim as it
gradually settled in the ocean, still struggling, with regular but
impotent strokes of the arms and feet, to gain the wreck, and to
preserve an existence that had been so much abused in its hour of
allotted probation.
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