If the word had passed around,
`Let us move to safer ground;
Let us steam away to seaward' -- then this tale were not to tell!
But each Captain seemed to say
`If the others stay, I stay!'
And they lingered at their moorings till the shades of evening fell.
Then the cloud wrack neared them fast,
And there came a sudden blast,
And the hurricane came leaping down a thousand miles of main!
Like a lion on its prey,
Leapt the storm fiend on the bay,
And the vessels shook and shivered as their cables felt the strain.
As the surging seas came by,
That were running mountains high,
The vessels started dragging, drifting slowly to the lee;
And the darkness of the night
Hid the coral reefs from sight,
And the Captains dared not risk the chance to grope their way to sea.
In the dark they dared not shift!
They were forced to wait and drift;
All hands stood by uncertain would the anchors hold or no.
But the men on deck could see
If a chance of hope might be --
There was little chance of safety for the men who were below.
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