With the exception of about half a pint, the brandy had made its way on
to the cabin floor; but it was strong, pure spirit--such brandy, in
fact, as smugglers might well reserve for their own private drinking; so
that the half pint was a very tolerable dose to take at once, and Todd
drained it to the last drop. "Better!" he said; "oh, yes, I am better, now." The fumes of the strong spirit mounted to his brain, and got the better,
for the time, of that frightful feeling of sickness which had been so
like death, that Todd had mistaken it for the last pangs that he was
likely to feel in this world. "Oh, yes, I am better. How the wind howls now, and how the waves dash
the ship hither and thither. The deck, yes, the deck will be the place
for me. Oh, gracious! what was that?" A loud crash, and a scream from some drowning wretches who had gone
overboard along with a mast, had broken upon his ears. Terror sat at his
very heart, and unable any longer to endure the frightful suspense of
being below, he tried, upon his hands and knees, to crawl upon the deck. By no other mode could Todd have had the slightest hope or expectation
of reaching the deck of that fated vessel, but as he tried it, he did,
after a time, succeed in dragging himself up from the cabin. The sea was
washing over the deck, and for a few moments he could see no one. He
watched for a lull in the wind, and then he cried--

"Help! help! Oh, help!" "Who's that?" shouted a voice. "I!" said Todd. "Go to blazes, then!" "Oh, how kind!" groaned Todd. "How very considerate at such a time as
this, too." The wind that had lulled for a few moments, now came with a frightful
gush, and Todd was glad to find the fragments of a quantity of cordage,
belonging to some of the top parts of the mast that had gone overboard,
to cling to till the gust had passed over the ship. Then there came some
tons of salt water over him, and he was nearly bereft of the power of
breathing. "Oh, this is dreadful!" he said. "This is truly dreadful!" "Hands off!" growled a voice. "Everybody for himself here. Hands off, I
say." "What do you mean?" said Todd. "Do you speak to me?" The voice had sounded close to him; and now again, with an angry tone,
it cried--

"Some one has got hold of my leg!" "Oh, I dare say I have," said Todd, "but I didn't know. There, I have
left go. Who are you, sir, eh?" "Oh! don't bother!" "Well, but is there any danger?" "Danger! I rather think there is. I suppose you are the love of a
passenger that the captain brought on board?" "Yes, I am the passenger," said Todd. Why he should be called a love of
a passenger he did not exactly know; but he repeated his question
concerning the condition of the ship; and at the next lull of wind, for
it came now very strangely in gusts, he got a not very consolatory
reply. "Why, as to danger," said the man, "that's rather past, I reckon; but,
perhaps, you are a landsman, and have not yet thoroughly made up your
mind." "To what?" "To be drowned, some day or night, as I have." "Oh, no--no! Don't say that. Drowning is a very dreadful death, indeed. I am sure it is." "It may, or it may not be so," said the man, "but whether it is or not,
you and I are very likely soon to find out, for the old craft is going
at last." "Going?" "Yes. It's all up with her, and it will soon be all down with her,
likewise." "But the ship goes easier through the sea." "Oh, ah, she's filling, you see, and settling lower down in the water,
so you can't have quite so much pitching and tossing as you had an hour
ago, hardly." "You can't mean that? You do not mean to tell me that there is no hope? Oh, say not so!" "Well, you can please yourself. I can tell you that the rudder has
gone.--We have not a mast standing. There is already five feet of water
in the hold, and we are drifting as hard as we can upon a lee-shore, so
if you can make anything satisfactory out of that, I leave you to do
it." "Did you say we were drifting to shore?" "A lee-shore." "Oh, dear. I'm glad to hear it. Any shore will do for me, if I can but
get out of this confounded ship. What is that afar off? Is it a light? Oh, yes, it is a light." "It is. We are on the Sussex coast, somewhere, but I can't take upon
myself to say where; but it don't matter a bit, for we shall go to
pieces long before we reach the surf, and then in such a sea as this you
might as well try to swallow the Channel at a few draughts as to swim." "But I can't swim at all." "It don't matter a bit." "But, my dear friend--"

"Hold your row--I am not your dear friend nor anybody else's, just now. I tell you we shall be all drowned, and the best thing you can do, is to
take it as easy as possible. What can be the good of making a fuss about
it?" This information was to Todd of so deplorable a character--for to none
is death so terrible as to the guilty--that he wept aloud and screamed
with terror as the spray of the sea struck him on the face, and the wind
roared and whistled over him. "Oh, no--no!" he cried. "I cannot die yet--I must not. Spare me--spare
me! I am afraid to die!" "Oh, you stupid," said the sailors. "That comes now of not having had a
proper sort of education. I make no doubt but your howling will pretty
soon be put an end to." The situation of the ship was undoubtedly one of the greatest possible
peril. Having by the violence of the tempest lost all her masts, and
having had her rudder torn away, she was quite at the mercy of the winds
and the waves; and the set of the sea, as well as the direction of the
wind, carried her sometimes stern foremost and at other times head
foremost, and at times broadside, on to the coast of Sussex, upon which
the lights were at intervals dimly visible through the thick haze of the
storm. It was truly a dreadful night, and such as fully merited the worst
apprehensions of the sailor, who had spoken so coolly to Todd of his
coming fate. There was but one chance for those on board of the vessel, and that was
that the wind might abate sufficiently to enable some boats to put off
from the Sussex coast, provided they happened to be off a part of it
where such accommodation was to be had, and rescue those upon the wreck. The lights that at intervals were visible, rather favoured the
supposition that it was a populous part of the coast that the
ill-starred struggling ship was driving fast upon. Todd, however, did not know of that slender hope, and he gave himself up
to despair. To a landsman nothing could exceed the real horrors of the scene on
board the ship, and, indeed, to one well accustomed to the sea, there
was quite enough to produce much terror. All but three persons connected
with the working of the ship had been washed overboard during the gale. Both of the men with whom Todd had had the meeting in the cart were at
the bottom of the sea, and all their struggles and smugglings were over. Todd did not know that, though.