Two possibilities they held, and each big with
doom. Either the schooner must dash upon the Raney--a reef, barely
covered at high water, barring entrance to the cove--or avoiding this,
must be shattered on the black wall of rock under their very feet.
The end of the little vessel was written--all but one word: and that
must be added within a short half-minute.
Ruby saw this: it was plain for a child to read. She saw the curded
tide, now at half-flood, boiling around the Raney; she saw the little
craft swoop down on it, half buried in the seas through which she was
being impelled; she saw distinctly one form, and one only, on the deck
beside the helm--a form that flung up its hands as it shot by the smooth
edge of the reef, a hand's-breadth off destruction. The hands were
still lifted as it passed under the ledge where she stood.
It seemed, as she stood there shivering, covering her eyes, an age
before the crash came, and the cry of those human souls in their
extremity.
When at length she took her hands from her face the others were twenty
yards away, and running fast.
CHAPTER II.
THE SECOND SHIP.
Fate, which had freakishly hurled a ship's crew out of the void upon
this particular bit of coast, as freakishly preserved them.
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