human
D'ee know when it'll be low water, sir?
gpt
Not for three hours yet, but it's falling. I expect there will be less sea on in a short time. If the ship holds together we may yet be saved.
human
I wish it was the risin' tide, he said, and the words took his mind back, like a flash of lightning, to the time when he used them in a very different sense. Then all was peace, hope, sunshine, and his bride was sitting like a good angel beside him, with a sweet smile on her fair face. Now, something like darkness visible, showed him his poor wife-- still beside him, thank God--but clinging to his arm with looks of terror amounting almost to despair.
gpt
What a contrast!
human
There's no use o' sittin' here to be drowned like rats, he cried, starting up.
gpt
I'll go on deck an' take a cast o' the lead, an' see what chances we have.
human
No, you won't, Bob, cried Nellie, throwing her arms firmly round him.
gpt
There's big stones falling all about the deck yet. Don't you hear them?
human
No use going up just now, Joe, he said, as he sat down beside his wife, and permitted her to tie a kerchief round his head.
gpt
Only a slight wound, Eva, got while taking soundings. I find that there are sixteen fathoms of water under us, and, although I couldn't see my hand held up before my face, I managed to make out by the flash of a match, which burned for a moment before being blown out, that the sides of the cave are quite perpendicular, not the smallest ledge to stand on. The tide, however, is ebbing fast, and the water in the cave calming, so that if no bad leak has been made by all this thumping we may yet be saved. Our only chance is to stick to the ship.