The gale was accompanied by stinging sleet and blinding snow squalls, and at length blew with such violence that they could no longer show the smallest patch of canvas.
In this emergency White constructed a sea anchor, by means of which he hoped to prolong their struggle for at least a few hours.

It was hardly got overboard, however, before a giant surge snapped its cable and hurled the little craft helplessly towards the crash and smother with which the furious seas warred against an iron coast.
In addition to the other perils surrounding our lads, the gloom of impending night was upon them, and they could only dimly distinguish the towering cliffs against which they expected shortly to be dashed.
Both of them stood by the tiller, grimly silent, and using the last of their strength to keep their craft head on, for in the trough of that awful sea she would have rolled over like a log.

Neither of them flinched nor showed a sign of fear, though both fully realised the fate awaiting them.
At last, with the send of a giant billow, the little schooner was flung bodily into the roaring whiteness, and, with hearts that seemed already to have ceased their beating, the poor lads braced themselves for the final shock.

To their unbounded amazement the "Sea Bee," instead of dashing against the cliffs, appeared to pass directly into them as though they were but shadows of a solid substance, and in another minute had shot, like an arrow from a bow, through a rift barely wide enough to afford her passage.
As her stupefied crew slowly realised that a reprieve from death had been granted at the last moment, they also became aware that they were in a place of absolute darkness, and, save for the muffled outside roar of furious seas, of absolute quiet.

At the same time they were so exhausted after their recent prolonged struggle that they found barely strength to get overboard an anchor.