I ought to have known better." "You need not vex yourself, brother, about that," said Eric.

"If there were twenty of us to get the boat into the water, instead of two, she could not live in the heavy sea that is now running.

She would be swamped by the first roller that came in upon us, for the wind is blowing dead on shore!" "That may be," replied Fritz; "still, I should like to do something, even if I knew it would be useless!" "So should I," said Eric, disconsolately.
In silence, the two continued to pace up and down the little platform they had levelled in front of their hut, trying to pierce the darkness that now entirely obscured the sea, the north-easter having brought up a thick fog in its train, perhaps from the far-distant African coast, which shut out everything on that side; although, the light of the bonfire still illumined the cliff encircling the valley where they had pitched their homestead, disclosing the inmost recesses of this, so that they could see from where they stood, the wood, which the conflagration had spared, as well as their garden and the tussock-grass rookery of the penguins beyond, not a feature of the landscape being hid.
Again came the booming, melancholy sound of the minute guns from sea, making the brothers more impatient than ever; and, at that moment, the fog suddenly lifted, being rapidly wafted away to leeward over the island, enabling the two anxious watchers to see a bit of bright sky overhead, with a twinkling star or two looking down on the raging ocean, now exposed to their gaze--all covered with rolling breakers and seething foam as far as the eye could reach, to the furthest confines of the horizon beyond the bay.
Still, they could perceive nothing of the ship that had been firing the signals of distress, till, all at once, another gun was heard; and the flash, which caught their glance at the same moment as the report reached them, now enabled them to notice her imminent peril.

This, the people on board could only then have noticed for the first time, the fog having previously concealed their danger; for they distinctly heard, above the noise of the sea and wind, a hoarse shout of agonised, frantic alarm, wafted shorewards by the wind in one of its wild gusts.
The vessel was coming up under close-reefed topsails, bow on to the headland on the western side of the bay; and, almost at the very instant the brothers saw her, she struck with a crash on the rocks, the surf rushing up the steep face of the cliff and falling back on the deck of the ill-fated craft in sheets of spray like soapsuds.
Fritz and Eric clasped their hands in mute supplication to heaven; but, at the same moment, the spars of the vessel--she was a brig, they could see--fell over her side with a crash.

There was a grinding and rending of timbers; and then, one enormous wave, as of three billows rolled into one, poured over her in a cataract.
One concentrated shriek of horror and agony came from the seething whirlpool of broken water, and, all was over; for, when the foam had washed away with the retreating wave, not a single vestige could be seen of the hapless craft! She had sunk below the sea with those on board.
"Oh, brother, it is awful!" cried Eric.
Fritz could not answer.