"Children's Books - Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

had been down on purpose to see, cried out we had sprung a leak;
another said there was four foot water in the hold. Then all hands
were called to the pump. At that very word my heart, as I thought,
died within me, and I fell backwards upon the side of my bed where I
sat, into the cabin. However, the men aroused me, and told me that
I, that was able to do nothing before, was as well able to pump as
another; at which I stirred up and went to the pump and worked very
heartily. While this was doing, the master seeing some light colliers,
who, not able to ride out the storm, were obliged to slip and run away
to sea, and would come near us, ordered to fire a gun as a signal of
distress. I, who knew nothing what that meant, was so surprised that I
thought the ship had broke, or some dreadful thing had happened. In
a word, I was so surprised that I fell down in a swoon. As this was
a time when everybody had his own life to think of, nobody minded
me, or what was become of me; but another man stepped up to the
pump, and thrusting me aside with his foot, let me lie, thinking I had
been dead; and it was a great while before I came to myself.
We worked on, but the water increasing in the hold, it was
apparent that the ship would founder, and though the storm began to
abate a little, yet as it was not possible she could swim till we
might run into a port, so the master continued firing guns for help;
and a light ship, who had rid it out just ahead of us, ventured a boat
out to help us. It was with the utmost hazard the boat came near us,
but it was impossible for us to get on board, or for the boat to lie
near the ship's side, till at last the men rowing very heartily, and
venturing their lives to save ours, our men cast them a rope over
the stern with a buoy to it, and then veered it out a great length,
which they after great labor and hazard took hold of, and we hauled
them close under our stern, and got all into their boat. It was to
no purpose for them or us after we were in the boat to think of
reaching to their own ship, so all agreed to let her drive, and only
to pull her in towards shore as much as we could, and our master
promised them that if the boat was staved upon shore he would make
it good to their master; so partly rowing and partly driving, our boat
went away to the norward, sloping towards the shore almost as far as
Winterton Ness.
We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship
but we saw her sink, and then I understood for the first time what was
meant by a ship foundering in the sea. I must acknowledge I had hardly
eyes to look up when the seamen told me she was sinking; for from that
moment they rather put me into the boat than that I might be said to
go in; my heart was, as it were, dead within me, partly with fright,
partly with horror of mind and the thoughts of what was yet before me.
While we were in this condition, the men yet laboring at the oar
to bring the boat near the shore, we could see, when, our boat,
mounting the waves, we were able to see the shore" great many people
running along the shore to assist us when we should come near. But
we made but slow way towards the shore, nor were we able to reach
the shore, till being past the lighthouse at Winterton, the shore
falls off to the westward towards Cromer, and so the land broke off