FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK, 225 



assured us • that the much wished-for start was being made. But so in- 

 tensely thick was the misty fog, that in the gray light of the early morning 

 that it was impossible to discern anything a hundred yards distant. Reach- 

 ing Deer Island Beacon, we headed out into Broad Sound. A little later 

 we saw a vessel on our port beam that had evidently just anchored. We 

 slowed up, thinking it might be ours, but deciding it was not, we started 

 on again. But now we began to meet with the ocean swell, and the little 

 steamer plunged and rolled terribly, sending showers of spray over the 

 top of the pilot-house. Down off the Faun Bar buoy the sea almost broke 

 from the bottom, and considering it too risky to venture on the back side of 

 the bar, the captain of the tug turned her around, and ran back again for 

 the schooner we had seen on our way out, and which, much to our surprise 

 and pleasure, proved to be the Eastern Queen. We now gave her a towing 

 warp, and, the anchor having been weighed, towed her to Commercial 

 dock, where, at last, we could hear the story of the escape, which before we 

 could only conjecture. After we left the vessel in the dory the tide rose 

 slowly, the wind and sea increasing at the same time, causing her to pound 

 very heavily. The men on board, one of whom was Murphy, deeming it 

 unsafe to stick by any longer, if they could leave in the boats, hoisted out a 

 dory, by way of experiment, and paid her down to leeward of the vessel. 

 But it was soon evident that the attempt to row a boat through the breakers 

 would be absolute madness, for the dory had been but a few moments out 

 when she was struck by a wave, rolled over and over, and knocked about 

 like an ^.gg shell in the yeasty waters that were then foaming all about the 

 apparently doomed Queen. Failing in this scheme, and knowing that the 

 vessel would soon pound her bottom out unless something more was done, 

 since, every time she fell, the grinding of planks and cracking of timbers 

 could be distinctly heard, the men determined to put her head on. They 

 therefore hoisted the foresail and jib, and slipping the cable, drove her on 

 as fast as the tide came ; whenever she rose on a sea she gained a little 

 ahead. The case with them was now absolutely desperate. There would 

 not be, even at full flood, as much water on the bar as the Quee?i drew by 

 nearly two feet.* The wind blew almost a gale, and the sea broke over her 

 in all directions. There was every reason to suppose that she might bilge 

 and break up. If this happened every soul on board must perish. But 

 Murphy resolutely clung to the wheel and headed her on the bar. At last 

 she rose on a wave, started ahead, kept going I while the joyful shout of, 

 "We're off! we're afloat !" was raised by every one. Owing to the density 



*When we returned to the place at low tide on the next day, to secure the cable and an- 

 chor that had been slipped, the bar was dry; and a deep track, like a furrow, marked the 

 point where the Eastern Queen had ploughed her way through a mass of rocks varying in 

 size from a water pail to a large cask. 



