He perceived that it was a large ship, within a quarter of a mile of the land, pressed gunnel under with her reefed courses, chopping through the heavy seas--now pointing her bowsprit to the heavens, as she rose over the impeding swell; now plunging deep into the trough encircled by the foam raised by her own exertions, like some huge monster of the deep, struggling in her toils and lashing the seas around in her violent efforts to escape.
The fire burnt up fiercely in the cove, in defiance of the rain and wind, which, after in vain attempting to destroy it in its birth, now seemed to assist it with their violence.
"She may yet be saved," thought Forster, "if she will only carry on.

Two cables' length more, and she will be clear of the point." Again and again was the vessel momentarily presented to his view, as the forked lightning darted in every quarter of the firmament, while the astounding claps of thunder bursting upon his ears before the lightning had ceased to gleam, announced to him that he was kneeling in the very centre of the war of the elements.

The vessel neared the cliff in about the same proportion that she forged ahead.

Forster was breathless with anxiety, for the last flash of electricity revealed to him that two moments more would decide her fate.
The gale now redoubled its fury, and Forster was obliged to cling for his existence as he sank, from his kneeling posture, flat upon the wet herbage.

Still he had approached so near to the edge of the cliff that his view below was not interrupted by his change of posture.