The boats were lowered, but only to be swept away by the waves.

As a last resort the captain proposed that some sailors should swim ashore with a rope, but not a man would volunteer.
"Captain," said the little twelve-year-old cabin boy, Jacques, timidly, "You don't wish to expose the lives of good sailors like these; it does not matter what becomes of a little cabin boy.

Give me a ball of strong string, which will unroll as I go on; fasten one end around my body, and I promise you that within an hour the rope shall be well fastened to the shore or I will perish in the attempt." Before anyone could stop him he leaped overboard.

His head was soon seen like a black point rising above the waves and then it disappeared in the distance and mist, and but for the occasional pull upon the ball of cord all would have thought him dead.

At length it fell as if slackened and the sailors looked at one another in silence, when a quick, violent pull, followed by a second and a third, told that Jacques had reached the shore.