Now we shot up till we looked down on the coxswain below us as from the top of a mast, and next instant we looked up at him till it seemed a marvel how he held to his place, and did not drop on to us.

All the while the men tugged doggedly at the oars, heeding neither the waves that broke over them and flooded the boat, nor the surf that often nearly knocked the oars from their hands.
And what of Jack and me?
We crouched there, close together, clutching fast at the friendly ring, looking out in mute terror on to this fearful scene, too stupefied to speak, or move, or almost to think.

Had any one seen us?
or had the hand which drove me down at the launch saved me from my danger by accident?
I began to think this must be so, when the man nearest us, whom even in his cork jacket and sou'-wester I recognised as the hero of the shark story in the "look-out," turned towards us.
He was not one of the rowers, but had been busily drawing in and coiling a line close beside us during those first terrific plunges of the boat after she had taken the water.

But now he turned hurriedly to where we sat, and without a word seized me roughly by the arm and drew me to my feet.

I made sure I was to be cast overboard like Jonah into that fearful sea.