We had to hold on pretty tightly ourselves, I can tell you, and the water that came aboard at times almost choked us; but with such a scene as that before us, not a man could have gone below, and we stood straining our eyes and trying to make out what was going on.
She was too far off for us to make out anything very plainly; but as we looked, up went a rocket, rush into the air, and, leaving its fiery train behind, broke into a shower of sparks. Then there was another and another sent up, and in the flashes of light we could make out as one mast crowded with people still stood, while a regular shudder went through one to think what it would be if that fell.
What seemed so cruel was that though we were only a quarter of a mile off we couldn’t help the poor creatures; all the good we were was to keep our light burning brightly to warn ships off, but once they were on the sands, with a heavy sea running, the stoutest shoremen shook their heads, and when the lifeboat was run out knew well enough that the chances were ever so much against the lives being all saved.
“Hooray!” says Bob Gunnis all at once; “here they come.”
“Where?” I says; “and who’s coming?”
Looking where he pointed, for the wind swept his words away, I held on my tarpaulin hat, and peered out to leeward, where every now and then I could just see the white and blue sides of the lifeboat with her sail up, and seeming to dance like a gull on the top of the water. Now she’d be quite hid in the dim misty clouds that kept flying across, half rain, half spray. Now she’d be seen plainer and nearer, coming on between us and the wreck; and then it would come over so dark again we could make nothing out. But the lightly-painted boat and her white sail soon showed again quite pale and ghost-like, now getting fast on towards the vessel; though I couldn’t help giving my head a shake as I held on and looked.
“What water is there where she lies?” I says to Bob Gunnis—for, you see, he was a chap as knew to a foot what water there was anywhere for far enough round.
“Let’s see,” he says, “it’s about low water now, or should be if there warn’t this gale on, but she won’t go down no lower anyhows. Let’s see, there’ll be just enough to float the lifeboat over, and that’s all; while if they give a scrape or a bump once it won’t be no wonder.”
And now we could just make out the lifeboat lay out for a bit, and then let go her kedge and drop down towards the ship, as seemed at times to be completely buried under water. It made your eyes ache to watch, for the spray came dashing into your face, while the lanthorn looked quite dull and dripping, with the water splashing and beating against it.
All at once we had a grand view of the lifeboat, for she lay just where the light from our lanthorn fell. All four of us saw her as we hung together by the bulwarks, and then there seemed something wrong, for she was lifted on a great wave; and then one’s heart seemed to come in one’s mouth, for she capsized.