The wind, however, had changed by this time, and for a couple of hours had been blowing off shore, instead of on shore, from the south, so that the violence of the sea had abated considerably, and Cloete-Smith decided to have one more try at swimming on shore. He very nearly succeeded in doing so; but the current caught him, and swept him down on the rocks, so he had to return. Then I made another attempt, but with no better success, and we were at our wits' end and were getting worn out with our efforts, when we saw Powell preparing to swim off to us with the end of that portion of the broken grass rope which had remained on shore.
He waited for his opportunity, then dashed into the surf, dived through the breakers, and managed to get out into the deep water safely. We swam off to meet him with the end of another rope, bent them together and swam back to the boat. The rest was easy. We had now got a connection with the shore; for the farther end of the rope was safely secured to a rock. One by one we made our way along the rope to dry land, then hauled the stores off with another light line, and, making the shore end of the grass rope fast to a turtle we had caught two days before, we sent it off as a present to the 'Bramble.'
It was a relief to find ourselves all safe on shore at last. We went up to the tents in a fairly exhausted condition for a much needed tot of rum. The boats pulled back to the ship and were hoisted up. 'Wish you good luck' was run up to the peak; we gave her a parting volley from our rifles, and then the gallant vessel steamed away--as it turned out, to take part in another revolution in Buenos Ayres--and we were alone once more.
On the following day we settled down to work again, cheered and refreshed. We had now got a supply of biscuit and flour which we hoped would last us until the return of the yacht, so we were much more comfortable in our minds than before the arrival of the 'Bramble.' We resumed our life of monotonous digging, and the only event of importance about this time was an accident which nearly proved fatal to Powell. He was fishing one afternoon on the big rock mentioned above, when one of the large waves which sometimes roll in unexpectedly here washed him off his perch into the sea. He was dashed violently on the rocks, and it was only by a piece of wonderful luck that he managed to clamber up again before he was stunned. He was much bruised, and lost his rod, his pipe, and hat--everything, in fact, except his life.
