The line passed close to the mainmast and a stiffened arm reached out and caught it, drew it inboard at the maintop, some thirty feet or so above the wave-washed[280] deck. There followed an interval of minutes—they did not seem like hours but they seemed tragically long—in which the two or three men gathered in the maintop, which is a small semi-circular platform with barely standing room for three, made various movements making fast the line; and having guarded against losing it they began slowly to pull its length in toward them.

The light line for firing carried to them a stouter rope, bent to the end of it, and a block and tackle. Eventually the block reached them and the people on shore prepared for the running out of the breeches buoy.

And all this dark and sightless while the distress of the motionless figures lashed in the mizzen rigging was something palpable, acute, and sensed without the need of a single gesture, a single sign, a moment’s glimpse. How were these unfortunates to avail themselves of the breeches buoy even when it reached the ship? To get to it they would have to unlash themselves, descend, and cross the deck between the mizzenmast and the mainmast and ascend to the maintop. To cross the deck would be impossible. As well try to walk fifty feet on the surface of the Atlantic.

It was not certain, furthermore, that those in the mizzen retained any power of physical movement. They did not shift their positions. Although they had lashed themselves in pairs close together they did not strike each other about the head, shoulders, and body,[281] as they should be doing if they had any vigour left, in the imperative effort to keep from freezing.

Slowly, with a painful slowness, the line was got ready for the running of t............