VERY HARD CASH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

CHAPTER XVII.

"ON deck for your lives!" cried Dodd,
forgetting in that awful moment he was not the
captain; and drove them all up, Robarts
included, and caught hold of Mrs. Beresford and
Freddy at their cabin door and half carried them
with him. Just as they got on deck the third
wave, a high, one, struck the ship and lifted
her bodily up, canted her round, and dashed her
down again some yards to leeward, throwing
them down on the hard and streaming deck.

At this tremendous shock the ship seemed a
live thing shrieking and wailing, as well as
quivering with the blow.

But one voice dissented loudly from the
general dismay. "All right, men," cried Dodd, firm
and trumpet-like. "She is broadside on now.
Captain Robarts, look alive, sir! Speak to the
men! don't go to sleep!"

Robarts was in a lethargy of fear. At this
appeal he started into a fury of ephemeral
courage: "Stick to the ship," he yelled; "there
is no danger if you stick to the ship," and with
this snatched a life buoy, and hurled himself
into the sea.

Dodd caught up the trumpet that fell from
his hand, and roared "I command this ship.
Officers come round me! Men to your quarters!
Come, bear a hand here, and fire a gun! That
will show us where we are, and let the Frenchmen
know."

The carronade was fired, and its momentary
flash revealed that the ship was ashore in a
little bay; the land abeam was low and some
eighty yards off; but there was something black
and rugged nearer the ship's stern.

Their situation was awful. To windward
huge black waves rose like tremendous ruins,
and came rolling, fringed with devouring fire;
and each wave, as it charged them, curled
up to an incredible height and dashed down
on the doomed ship—solid to crush, liquid
to drown—with a ponderous stroke that made
the poor souls stagger; and sent a sheet of
water so clean over her that part fell to
leeward, and only part came down on deck,
foretaste of a watery death; and each of these
fearful blows drove the groaning, trembling,
vessel farther on the sand, bumping her along
as if she had been but a skiff.

Now it was men showed their inner selves.

Seeing Death so near on one hand, and a
chance of escape on the other, seven men proved
unable to resist the two great passions of Fear
and Hope on a scale so gigantic, and side by
side. Bayliss, a midshipman, and five sailors,
stole the only available boat and lowered her.

She was swamped in a moment.

Many of the crew got to the rum, and stupified
themselves to their destruction.

Others rallied round their old captain, and
recovered their native courage at the brave and
hopeful bearing he wore over a heart full of
anguish. He worked like a horse, encouraging,
commanding, doing: he loaded a carronade with
1lb. of powder, and a coil of rope, with an
iron bar attached to a cable, and shot the rope
and bar ashore.

A gun was now fired from the guard-house,
whose light Robarts had taken for a ship. But,
no light being shown any nearer on the coast,
and the ship expected every minute to go to
pieces, Dodd asked if any one would try to swim
ashore with a line, made fast to a hawser on
board.

A sailor offered to go if any other man would
risk his life along with him. Instantly Fullalove
stripped, and Vespasian next.

"Two is enough on such a desperate errand,"
said Dodd, with a groan.

But now emulation was up, and neither Briton,
Yankee, nor negro, would give way: a line was
made fast to the sailor's waist, and he was
lowered to leeward; his venturesome rivals
followed. The sea swallowed those three heroes
like crumbs: and small was the hope of life for
them.

The three heroes, being first rate swimmers
and divers, and going with the tide, soon neared
the shore on the ship's lee quarter; but a sight
of it was enough: to attempt to land on that
rock with such a sea on, was to get their skulls
smashed like eggshells in a moment. They had
to coast it, looking out for a soft place.

They found one; and tried to land; but so
irresistible was the suction of the retiring wave,
that, whenever they got foot on the sand and
tried to run, they were wrenched out to sea
again, and pounded black and blue and breathless
by the curling breaker they met coming in.

After a score of vain efforts, the negro, throwing