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 stupefied 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 a pound 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.
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