148 WRECKS ON THE PURBECK COAST. 



off, and with difficulty reached first a rock and then the cavern. 

 Scarcely arrived there the final crash was heard: Ship and 

 women, with one fearful cry, were buried in the waves. 



All was done with them: and to those who were in compara- 

 tive safety, life was indeed hanging by a thread. Many never 

 saw the morning; falling, numbed with cold or worn out 

 with fatigue, from the perches scarcely out of reach of the surf, 

 which they had been able to gain in the cavern. 



The morning dawned after about three hours, but brought 

 with it little to cheer those who yet remained in the cavern. The 

 overhanging cliff must be hiding them from the view of any on 

 shore, even if their guns of distress should have been heard amid 

 the storm. No boats could be passing in that sea on their own 

 occupation, or indeed live in it if a search could have been made 

 for possible survivors : nor finally did any portion of the ship 

 remain, to suggest that sufierers might be discoverable. 



But one chance afforded itself; to creep along the side of the 

 cavern, and turning its corner to clamber up the nearly perpen- 

 dicular precipice. Two men, the cook and the quarter master, 

 by name James Thompson, first succeeded in reaching the top, 

 and with all haste made known the danger at Eastington, the 

 residence of Mr. Garland, whose quarrymen, under his direction, 

 hurried to the spot. Others of the crew had been following, and 

 one gentleman, Mr. Meriton, the second mate, was rescued, in 

 the very act of falling, by the lowering of a rope at that critical 

 instant. Others were less fortunate, and though eventually 

 seventy four were saved, an equal number were supposed to 

 have perished of those who had escaped with their lives from the 

 vessel itself. 



From the quarry now called the Halsewell Quarry to the 

 cavern, must have been a height of not less than one hundred 

 feet, of which perhaps ninety would be sheer precipice, the re- 

 maining distance forming a slope from the quarry floor to the 

 edge of the cliff. On that edge stood two men, fastened with 

 a rope to an iron bar fixed in the ground above ; behind them, 

 in like manner, bound with the same rope, two other sets of 

 men. Thus planted, they lowered a rope with a noose fixed, 



