Read "Driven to Bay, Volume II" by Florence Marryat online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The foreyard was pointed, and the gear of the mainsail hauled up, while Richard Sparkes, with the aid of five hands, swung the lifeboat into its davits. On the poop deck there was terrible confusion. The married ladies crowded round poor Mrs Leyton, who was half swooning from her anxiety and fear; Alice, refusing all assistance from Captain Lovell or anybody else, stood with clenched teeth and strained eyeballs watching the two black specks that bobbed up and down like corks upon the water; and the rest of the passengers pressed against the taffrail, talking in loud and excited tones to each other, whilst they watched the fight for life or death.
In a few minutes the boat was pushed off, and the sturdy sailors made the oars bend beneath the weight of their arms. Mr Sparkes held the tiller, and kept cheering on the men, whilst he eagerly watched the objects ahead of them.