CHAPTER IX. THE WRECK ABANDONED, AND THE LIFE-BOAT DESPAIRED OF.
"Alone upon the leaping billows, lo!
What fearful image works its way? A ship!
Shapeless and wild...
Her sails dishevell'd, and her massy form
Disfigured, yet tremendously sublime:
Prowless and helmless through the waves she rocks,
And writhes, as if in agony! Like her,
Who to the last, amid o'erwhelming foes,
Sinks with a bloody struggle into death,—
The vessel combats with the battling waves,
Then fiercely dives below! the thunders roll
Her requiem, and whirlwinds howl for joy!"
Crabbe.
The boatmen, as soon as they get on board the brig, find that she is in a very perilous position, but have hopes of getting her off.
At all events they will try very hard for it. She is a fine new and strongly-built Portuguese brig, belonging to Lisbon, and bound from Newcastle to Rio, with coals and iron. Her crew consists of the captain, the mate, ten men, and a boy.
She is head on to the Sand, but the Sand does not shelve much, and her keel is pretty even. The wind is still blowing very strongly and right astern. The tide is on the turn, and will flow quickly: there is no time to be lost; the first effort must be to prevent the brig driving further on the Sand.
With this object in view the boatmen get an anchor out astern as quickly as possible; they rig out tackles on the foreyard, and hoist the bower anchor on deck; they then slew the yard round, and get the anchor as far aft as they can; then shift the tackles to the main yard, and lift the anchor well to the stern; shackle the chain cable on, get it all clear for running out, try the pumps to see that they work; and then wait until the tide makes sufficiently to enable the steamer, which draws six feet of water, to get a little nearer.
They hope that the steamer will be able to back close enough to them, to get a rope on board fastened to the flukes of the brig's anchor, and to drag the anchor out, and drop it about one hundred fathoms astern of the vessel. All hands will then go to the windlass, keep a strain upon the cable, and each time the vessel lifts, heave with a will—the steamer, with a hundred and twenty fathoms of nine-inch cable out, towing hard all the time. By these means they expect to be able, gradually, to work the vessel off the Sands.
But they soon lose all hope of doing this; it is about one o'clock in the morning; the moon has gone down; heavy showers of rain fall; it is pitch dark and very squally; the gale is evidently freshening again; a heavy swell comes up before the wind, and as the tide flows under the brig she begins to work very much, for now the heavy waves roll in over the sand, and she lifts, and falls with shocks that make the masts tremble and the decks gape open.
The boatmen begin to fear the worst. The life-boat is alongside, with seven hands in her; she is afloat in the basin that the brig has worked in the sands, and it takes all the efforts of the men on board to prevent her getting under the side of the vessel and being crushed.
The wind increases as the tide flows, and the brig works with great violence, now, as she rolls and careens over upon her bilge, she threatens to fall upon, and destroy the life-boat The captain of the boat hails the men on the brig to come on board the boat, and get away from the side of the vessel as fast as they can. The boatmen try to explain the danger to the Portuguese, but they cannot understand. Hail, after hail, comes from the boat, for every moment increases the peril, but the Portuguese captain still refuses to leave his vessel. Any moment may be too late; the boatmen are almost ready to try and force the Portuguese over the side, but they cannot persuade them to stir; and as they will not desert them, they also wait on; wait on while the ship rolls, and works, and groans, while the seas fly over her, and at any moment she may break up. Suddenly a loud sharp crack, like a crashing of thunder, peals through the ship.
The boatmen jump on the gunwale, ready to spring for the life-boat, for she may be breaking in half; no, but one of her large timbers has snapt like a pipe-stem, and others will soon follow.
The Portuguese sailors make a rush to get what things they can on deck; altogether they fill eight sea-chests with their clothes. These are quickly lowered into the life-boat. Her captain does not like having her hampered with so much baggage, but cannot refuse the poor fellows, at least, a chance of saving their kit. The surf flies over the brig, and boils up all around her. The life-boat is deluged with spray, and her lights are washed out; the vessel still lifts and thumps and rolls with the force of the sea. Time after time the snapping and rending of her breaking timbers are heard; at each heave she wrenches and cracks and groans in all directions—she is breaking up fast. Make haste, make haste! for your lives be as quick as you can! The chests are all lowered, the boy is handed into the boat, the Portuguese sailors follow, the boatmen spring after them, and the brig is abandoned.
We have said that it was about one o'clock in the morning when the squalls came on again, with heavy rain and thick darkness. The steamer had remained at anchor, waiting for the tide to rise, when, with the water deeper, she would be able to get nearer the brig. But as the gale freshens there is a dangerous broken sea where she is riding, and she begins to pitch very heavily. She paddles gently ahead to ease her cable, but it is soon evident to the men on board her, that if they are to get their anchor at all they must make haste about it.
They heave it up, and lay to for the life-boat.
The sea increases so rapidly that the Dreadnought lugger is almost swamped, and has to cut her cable without attempting to save her anchor, and to make with all speed before the gale for Ramsgate. The Petrel lugger springs her mast, which is fished with great difficulty, and she, too, makes the best of her way to the harbour.
The wind continues to increase, the gale is again at its height, and a fearful sea running. Wave after wave breaks over the steamer's decks, but she is an excellent boat, strongly built and powerful; and her captain and crew are well used to rough work.
Head to wind and steaming half power, she holds her own against the wind, and keeps, as far as her crew can judge, in the neighbourhood of the wreck and of the life-boat. As time passes, and the crew of the steamer can see nothing of the boat, they get anxious. The wreck must have been abandoned long before this; has the boat been unable to get away from her? is the boat swamped or stove? and are all lost? They signalize again and again, but in vain; they can obtain no answer. They cruize up and down as near the edge of the Sands as they dare, hoping to fall in with the boat. Now they make in one direction, and now in another, as in their eagerness and apprehension the roar of the storm shapes itself into cries of distress, or as a darker shadow on the sea leads them into the hope that at last they have found the lost boat. All hands keep steadfastly on the look-out, and get greatly excited; the storm becomes truly terrible; but they forget their own peril and hardships in their great anxiety for the safety of the crew of the life-boat, and of the poor fellows who were on the wreck.
Their anxiety becomes insupportable, heightened as it is by the horrors of the night.
Through the thick darkness, the bright light of the Goodwin light-vessel shines out like a star. With a faint hope the crew of the steamer wrestle their way through the storm and speak the light-vessel.
"Have you seen anything of the life-boat?" the captain of the steamer shouts out. "Nothing! nothing!" is the answer. It seems to confirm all their fears, and they hasten back again to their old cruising ground—they will not lessen their exertions, or lose any chance of rendering assistance to their comrades. It is still pitch-dark, and the storm rages on—the hours creep by, O how slowly!
How they long for the light! All hands still on the watch! and as the first grey light of dawning comes, it is with straining eye-balls they seek to penetrate the twilight, and find some signs of their lost comrades. It is almost broad daylight before they can even find out the place where the wreck was lying.
With all speed, but little hope, they make for it; and then indeed their great dread seems realized. The brig is completely broken up, literally torn to pieces. They can see great masses of timber, and tangled rigging, but no signs of life. Nearer and nearer they go and wait for the broad daylight; but still nothing is to be seen, but shattered pieces of wreck, moored fast by the matted rigging to the buried remains of the hull, and tossing and heaving in the surf.
Some of the men fancy they can see fragments of the life-boat heaving about with the other wreckage, but whether it is so or not, the end seems the same, and after one last careful but fruitless look around, to see whether there are any signs of the life-boat elsewhere on the Sands, sadly they turn the steamer's head away from the dreary fatal Goodwin, and make for the harbour.
They grieve for brave comrades tried in many scenes of danger, and think with faint hearts of the melancholy report they have to give, and it is but little consolation to them in the face of so great a loss, to remember that they, at all events, have done all in their power, and that they have nothing to reproach themselves with.
To return to the life-boat men; all hands have deserted the brig, and there are now in the life-boat thirteen Portuguese sailors, five Broadstairs boatmen, and her ordinary crew, consisting of thirteen Ramsgate boatmen, altogether thirty-one souls. The small Dreadnought life-boat has been swung against the brig by the force of the tide, and is so damaged that no one dares venture in her. The tide is rising fast, the gale blowing as hard as ever, the surf running very high and breaking over the vessel, so that one constant torrent of spray and foam is falling with no light weight, or small volume, upon the life-boat which is under the lee of the brig, and the men have no protection from the falling sheets of spray. The vessel is rolling heavily, she has worked a bed in the sands, which the run of tide has somewhat enlarged, and in this she half floats, rolling from side to side with fearful rapidity and violence.
The life-boat is afloat within the circle of the bed; the brig threatens to roll over her. "Shove and haul off, quick! Shove and haul off," are the orders. Some with oars, pushing against the brig, others hauling might and main upon the brig's hawser, they manage to pull the boat two or three yards up towards the boat's anchor, and to get her a little farther off from the side of the brig. Now she grounds heavily upon the edge of the basin that has been worked in the sand by the brig. "Strain every muscle, men; now, or never! now, or never! for your lives pull!" and pull and strain they did. No! not one inch will the life-boat stir; she falls over on her side, the surf and seas sweep over her, the men cling to the thwarts and gunwale; all but her own crew give up all thoughts of hope; but they know the capabilities of the boat and do not lose heart—Crash! the brig heaves, and crushes down upon her bilge; again and again she half lifts upon an even keel and rolls, and lurches from side to side; each time that she falls to leeward, she comes more and more over and nearer to the boat.
This is the danger that may well make the stoutest heart quail. The boat is aground—helplessly aground; her crew can see through the darkness of the night the yards and masts of the brig swaying over their heads; now tossing high in the air as the brig rights, and now falling nearer and nearer to them, sweeping down over their heads, swaying and rending in the air, the blocks, and ropes, and torn fragments of sails, flying wildly in all directions. Let but one of the swaying yards but hit the boat, she must be crushed and all lost. The men crouch down closer and closer, clinging to the thwarts as the brig falls to them; casting dread glances at the approaching yards; all right once more; another pull at the cable—hard, men, hard; over again comes the brig; stick to it, men, stick to it, my men; crushed or drowned it will be soon over if we cannot move the boat; another pull, all together; again, and again, they make desperate efforts to stir the boat, but she will not move one inch; they must wait, and if needs be, wait their doom; and as they wait the danger each moment increases.
It is a fearful time of suspense, this waiting aground on the dread Goodwin, in the darkness and wildness of the storm, half dead with cold and the ceaseless rush of surf over them, and watching in the shadowy darkness the swaying masts of the rolling brig, swinging nearer and nearer, and how will this question of life and death be decided? Which will happen first? will the tide flow sufficiently to float them, or will the brig crush them with her masts and yards before they can get beyond her reach.
The men can do nothing more in the dark wild night and terrible danger; each minute seems an hour; they almost forget to try and protect themselves from the wind and spray, and they watch the brig as if spellbound, as she rolls nearer and nearer; each moment the position gets more desperate.
Any one hit? as the flying blocks hanging from the yard-arms rattle over the heads of the men in the boat. No! but a few feet nearer and we should all have been crushed—a turn or two more and we shall be finished. There is a stir among the men; the moment seems come; they prepare for the last struggle. Some are getting ready to spring for the flying rigging of the brig, as it sways over their heads, hoping thus to get on board the wreck if the life-boat is crushed up. "Stick to the boat, men! stick to the boat, men, it's our only chance," the coxswain cries out, "the brig must soon go to pieces, while we may yet get clear; stick to the boat!" And the brig, which had quivered while lying on her side as if coming bodily over, while the dark yards hovered over the crouching men, lifted again, and once more the men breathe with a sigh of relief; for that time they quite expected the boat to be crushed and pinned where she lay.
At this moment the boat trembles beneath them, lifts a little on the swell of the tide that is beginning to reach her, and grounds again.
It is like a word of life to the men, and instantly all are on the alert, they get all their strength on the hawser, and as the boat lifts again, and comes a little more on an even keel, they draw her a yard or two nearer to her anchor, but not any farther from the brig, and over again the brig slowly rolls; again and again they make desperate efforts to get beyond the reach of her dark side, and swinging yards and masts, but it is long before they can do so: at last they succeed as the water flows still more, and now they ride to their anchor a few yards beyond the reach of the brig, which they watch break up, and listen to the groaning and rending of her timbers, and the flapping of her torn sail and tangled rigging. Both the wind and tide are setting with all their force right upon the Sands, and the captain of the boat sees what is before them; where they are now at anchor will soon be one wild rage of broken sea. To get away from the sand in the face of the fierce gale and tide is impossible; and so there is no alternative, they must beat right across the Sands, and this in the wild fearful gale, and terrible sea, and pitch dark night, and what the danger of this is, only those who know the Goodwin Sands, and the dread seas that sweep over them, can at all imagine.
They ride at anchor for some time, waiting for the tide to rise sufficiently for them to get over the Sands. They see the lights of the steamer shining in the distance, outside the broken and shallow water; but there is no hope of assistance from her: their lanterns are washed out, they cannot signalize; and if they could, the steamer could not approach them.
The sea is breaking furiously over them. Time after time the boat fills as the broken waves wash clean over her, but instantly she empties herself again, and rises to her water-line. The gale sweeps by more fiercely than ever. The men are nearly washed out of the boat, and worse still, the anchor begins to drag. The tide has made a little, and they are being driven each moment nearer to the wreck; there may be water enough to take them clear; at all events, there is no help for it, they must risk it. "Hoist the foresail; stand by to cut the cable. All clear."—"Ay, Ay!"—"Away then."
And the boat quickly heads round, and then, under the power of the gale and tide, leaps forward, flies along; but only for a few yards, when, with a tremendous jerk, she grounds upon the Sands. The crew look up, and their hearts almost fail them, as they find that they are again within reach of the brig.
Her top-gallant masts are swaying about, her yards swing within a few feet of them, her sails which have blown loose and are in ribbons, beat and flap like thunder over their heads. Their position seems worse than ever; but they are not this time kept long in suspense. A huge breaker comes foaming along; its white crest gleams out in the darkness high above them, a moment's warning, it breaks over them and swamps them, but all are clinging might and main to the boat.
Another breaker comes streaming along; it swamps them again in passing, but now the volume of the wave seizes the boat, up it seems to swing it in its mighty arms, and to bodily hurl it forward; and then the boat crashes down on the Sands as the wave breaks, and grounds them with a shock that would have torn every man out of her, if they had not been holding on.
But one great peril is passed; the mighty swing of the huge waves has carried them yards forward, and they are clear of the wreck; but at that moment they are threatened with another danger almost as terrible. The small Dreadnought life-boat has been in tow all this time; it has not been wise to have her in tow, but she belongs to the Broadstairs boatmen, and neither they nor the Ramsgate boatmen like to abandon her.
As the Ramsgate boat now grounds, the smaller boat comes bow on to her, sweeps round, and gets under her side; the two boats roll and crash together; each roll the larger one gives, each lift of the sea, she comes heavily down on the other boat; the crash and crack of timbers are heard; which boat is it that is breaking up? Both, if this continues, must be very speedily destroyed. Some of the men get out the oars and boat-hooks, and push for their very lives, thrusting and striving their utmost to free the Dreadnought, which is so dangerously thumping and crashing under the quarter of the larger boat. It is a terrible struggle in that boiling sea, with the surf breaking over them. But all their efforts seem in vain, the boats still crash and roll together; one of them is breaking up fast. "Oars in," shouts the coxswain; "over the side half-a-dozen of you—take your feet to her;" and some of the brave fellows spring over, clinging to the rail of the deck of the high air-boxes that are at the bow and stern of the Ramsgate life-boat. Again and again, all together, a fierce struggle, but without success; a big wave comes rolling on, it washes over them, but as the larger boat lifts, the men blindly thrust out with their feet, and the Dreadnought is pushed clear. The men scramble, or are dragged back into the Ramsgate boat; the tow-rope is cut, and the Dreadnought, almost a wreck, is swept away by the tide, and is lost in the darkness, while, most mercifully, the Ramsgate boat still remains uninjured.
A third time they are providentially saved from what seemed almost like certain death; and yet they have only commenced the beginning of their troubles, for is there not before them the long range of sands, with the broken fierce waves and raging surf, and many a fragment of wreck, like sunken rocks studded here and there, upon any one of which, if they strike, it must be death to them all?
The boat is still aground upon the ridge of sand. She lifts, and is swept round, and grounds again broadside to the sea, which makes a clean breach over her. The Portuguese are all clinging together under the lee of the foresail, and there is no getting them to move. The crew are holding on where they can; sometimes buried in the water, often with only their heads out. The captain is standing up in the stern, holding on by the mizen-mast; sometimes he can see nothing of the men as the surf sweeps over them. He orders the chests to be thrown overboard, but most of them are already washed away; the rest are unlashed from their fastenings, and lifted as the men can get at them, and the next wave carries them away. Heavy masses of cloud darken the sky; the rain falls in torrents; it is bitterly cold; the men can do nothing but hold on; the tide rises gradually; suddenly the boat lifts again; it is caught by the driving sea, and is flung forward. There is no keeping her straight, the water is too broken; her stern frees itself before the bow, and round she swings; her bow lifts a little; onward she goes a few yards, and grounds again by the stern; round sweeps the bow, and with another jerk she comes broadside on the Sands again, lurching over on her side, with the terrible surf making a clean sweep over the waist. It is a struggle for the men to get their breath, the spray beats over them in such clouds. This happens time after time. The captain calls the men aft, that the boat may be lightened in the bow, and thus be more likely to keep straight. Most of the boatmen come to the stern, but the Portuguese will not move, and even some of the boatmen are so exhausted with the violent exertions they have made, and by the beating of the waves, that they are almost unconscious, and only able to cling to the gunwale and thwarts of the boat with an iron, nervous grasp, and are thus just able to save themselves from being washed out of her. As the coxswain notices their exhausted state, he expects each time as the big waves wash over them to see some of them leave go their hold and be carried away; and although he makes as light of it as he can, and tries to cheer them up, he himself has very small hope of ever seeing land again.
The sands on the sea shore, if there has been any surf, appear at low tide uneven with the ridges or ripples the waves have left on them. On the Goodwins, where the force of the sea is in every way multiplied, and the waves break and the tide rushes with tenfold power, the little sand ripples of the smoother shore become ridges of two or three feet high.
It is on these ridges that the life-boat so continually grounds. As the tide rises she is swept from one to the other by the long sweeping waves; she is swung round and round in the swirl of the cross-seas and rapid tide, thumping and jerking heavily each time that she strands. All this is in the midst of darkness, of bitter cold, and of a raging wind, surf, and sea, until the hardship and peril are almost too much to be borne, and some of the men feel dying in the boat.
One old boatman afterwards thus described his feelings. "Well, sir, perhaps my friends were right when they said I hadn't ought to have gone out—that I was too old for that sort of work"—he was then about sixty years of age—"but, you see, when there is life to be saved, it makes one feel young again; and I've always felt I have had a call to save life when I could; and I wasn't going to hang back then; and I stood it better than some of them after all. I did my work on board the brig, and when she was so near falling over us, and when the Dreadnought life-boat seemed knocking our bottom out, I got on as well as any of them; but when we got to beating, and grubbing over the Sands, swinging round and round, and grounding every few yards with a jerk that bruised us sadly, and almost tore our arms out from the sockets—no sooner washed off one ridge, and beginning to hope that the boat was clear, than she thumped upon another harder than ever, and all the time the wash of the surf nearly carrying us out of the boat—it was truly almost too much for any man to stand. There was a young fellow holding on next to me; I saw his head begin to drop, and that he was getting faint, and going to give over; and when the boat filled with water, and the waves went over his head, he scarcely cared to struggle free. I tried to cheer him a bit, and keep his spirits up. He just clung to the thwart like a drowning man. Poor fellow, he never did a day's work after that night, and died in a few months.
"Well, I couldn't do anything with him, and I thought that it didn't matter much, for I felt it must soon all be over; that it couldn't be long before the boat would be knocked to pieces. So I took my life-belt off, that I might have it over all the quicker; for I knew that there would be no chance whatever of life if the boat once went, and I would have it over all the quicker, for I didn't want to be beating about those sands alive or dead longer than I could help; the sooner I went to the bottom, the better, I thought. When once all hope of life was over—and that time seemed close upon us every moment—some of us kept shouting, just cheering ourselves and one another up, as well as we could; but I had to give that up, and I remember hearing the captain crying out, 'We will see Ramsgate yet again, my men, if we steer clear of old wrecks,' And then I heard the Portuguese lad crying, and I remember that I began to think that it was a terrible dream, and pinched myself to see if I was really awake; and I began to feel very strange and insensible. I didn't feel afraid of death, for, you see, I hadn't left it to such times as that to prepare to meet my God. And if ever I spent hours in prayer, be sure I spent them in prayer that night. And I just seemed going off in a kind of dead faint, and felt very dream-like, and as if I couldn't hold on any longer; and as I felt this I thought, in a feeble sort of way, of my friends ashore, and bid them good-bye like, for I knew that I should be soon washed out of the boat, when I looked up, and the surf was curling up both sides of the boat, and I was going to throw myself down on the thwart, that the seas might beat upon my back, and I should never have lifted it up again, when I saw a bright star. The clouds had broken a little, and there was that blessed beautiful star shining out. Yes, truly it was a blessed beautiful star to me; as it caught my eye it seemed, in my weak state, to lay a strange hold upon me; to gather all my attention, and to call me back to life again. And I began to have a little thought about seeing my home again, and that I wasn't going to be called away just yet. And I straightened myself up a little, and laid a firmer hold upon the boat, and lifted my head to look for the star after each time the seas beat over us, and I kept my eye upon it whenever I could; and I cannot explain how it was, but looking for and watching that star kept me up, and when I got ashore, I seemed at first not much worse than the best of them. But for seven whole days after that I lost my speech, and lay like a log upon my bed; and I was ill a long time—indeed, have never been right since, and I suppose at my age I never shall get over it. But what is more, I believe something of the same sort may be said of most of those that were in the boat that night. One poor young fellow is dead, another has been subject to fits ever since, and not any of us quite the men we were before, and no wonder when you think what we passed through.
"I cannot describe it, and you cannot, neither can any one else; but when you say you've beat and thumped over those sands, almost yard by yard, in a fearful storm on a winter's night, and live to tell the tale, why it seems to me about the next thing to saying that you've been dead, and brought to life again."
The coxswain of the life-boat, brave Isaac Jarman, was chosen for that position for his fortitude, skill, and daring, and well did he sustain his character that night, never for one moment losing his presence of mind, and doing his utmost to cheer the men up. The crew consisted of hardy, daring fellows, ready to face any danger, to go out in any storm, and to do battle with the wildest seas; but the horrors of that night were almost too much for the most iron nerves.
The fierce freezing wind, the almost pitch darkness, the terrible surf, and beating waves, and the men unable to do anything for their safety; the boat driven, almost hurled, by the force of the waves from sand ridge to sand ridge, and apparently breaking up beneath them each time she lifted on the surf and crushed down again upon the Sands, besides the danger of her getting foul of any old wrecks—how all this was lived through seemed miraculous. Time after time there was a cry of "Now she breaks up! she can't stand this! all over at last!" Another such thump, and she is done for, and then the boat would writhe, almost on her beam ends, while the waves beat over, until she was again lifted and thrown forward to crash down and ground again; and all this lasted for about two hours, as almost yard by yard they beat from ridge to ridge over the sands.
Suddenly the swinging and beating of the boat cease; she is in a very heavy sea, but she answers her helm and keeps her head straight. At last they have got over the Sands and into deep water; the danger is passed, and they are saved. With new hopes comes new life. Some can scarcely realize their comparative safety, and still keep their firm hold upon the boat, expecting each second another terrible lurch and jerk upon the Sands, and the heavy rush and wash of the seas. No: that is all over, and the boat, in spite of her tremendous knocking about, is sound, and sails buoyantly and well.
The crew quickly get further sail upon her, and she makes way before the gale to the westward. The Portuguese sailors lift their heads. They have been clinging together and to the boat, crouching down under the lee of the foresail during the time of beating over the Sands; they notice the stir among the boatmen, and that the terrible jerking and thumping of the boat and the rush of sea over her have ceased; and they also learn that the worst is passed, and that the danger is at an end.
Long since did they despair of life; and their surprise and joy now know no bounds. Bravely on goes the life-boat, making for the westward. The Portuguese are very busy in earnest consultation. The poor fellows have lost their kit, and only possess the things they have on, and a few pounds that they have with them. Soon it becomes evident what the consultation has been about. "Coxswain!" one of the boatmen cries out, "they want to give us all their money!"
"Yes! yes!" said the interpreter, in broken English, "you have saved our lives! Thank you! thank you! but all we have is yours; it is not much, but you take it between you;" and he held out the money. It was about 17l.
"I, for one, won't touch any of it," said the coxswain of the boat. "Nor I!" "Nor I!" others added; "put your money up."
The brave fellows will not take a farthing from brother sailors, whom they know to be poor, much like themselves; and in a few words they make them understand this, and how glad they are to have saved them.
The life-boat makes good way, and soon runs across the Sands through the Trinity Swatch Way, and, without further adventure, she reaches the harbour about five o'clock in the morning. The crew of the brig are placed under the care of the Portuguese Consul, and the boatmen go to their homes, to feel for many a long day the effects of the fatigues and perils of that terrible night.
During all this time the steamer has been cruising up and down the edge of the Sands, vainly searching for any trace of the life-boat; and soon after daylight she made, as has been already described, for the harbour. Her captain and crew are half broken-hearted, and scarcely know how they shall be able to tell the tale of the terrible calamity that seems so certainly to have happened. Suddenly, as the mouth of the harbour opens to them, they see the life-boat. They stare with amazement, and can scarcely believe their eyes. "Astonished," said the captain of the steamer, describing his feelings, "that I was; never so much so in my life, as when I stood looking at that boat. I could have shouted and cried for very wonder and joy; you might have knocked me down with a straw." Thus the captain of the steamer described his feelings. It was the same with all the crew; and as the steamer shot round the pier and heard that all were saved, and the life-boatmen all right, the good news seemed to more than repay them for the dangers and anxieties of the night.
Thus did the crew of the gallant life-boat and of the steamer help to earn that night the noble reputation that belongs to our boatmen and sailors at large—testimony to which was given, on one occasion, by a foreign captain, who said, "Ah! we may always know whether it is upon the English coast that we are wrecked, by the efforts that are made for our rescue."