But the serious discomfort to which they had voluntarily exposed themselves, so far from damping their ardour only increased it. As the veteran Bill, standing there at the tiller exposed to the full fury of the tempest, with the tiller-ropes pulling and jerking at his hands until they threatened to cut into the bone, felt his wet clothing clinging to his skin, and his sea-boots gradually filling with water, he pictured to himself a group of poor terror-stricken wretches clinging despairingly to a shattered wreck out there upon the cruel sands, with the merciless sea tugging at them fiercely, and the wind chilling the blood within their veins until, perchance, their benumbed limbs growing powerless, their hold would relax and they would be swept away; and as the dismal scene rose before his mental vision he tautened up the tiller-ropes a trifle, the smack’s head fell off perhaps half a point, and the wind striking more fully upon the straining canvas, she went surging out to seaward like a startled steed, her hull half buried in a whirling chaos of flying foam.
Old Bill, the leader of this desperate expedition, was a fisherman in winter and a yachtsman in summer, as indeed were most of the crew of the Seamew on this eventful night. Many a hard-fought match had Bill sailed in, and more than one flying fifty had he proudly steered, a winner, past the flag-ship; but his companions agreed, as they crouched shivering under the bulwarks, that he never handled a craft better or more boldly than he did the Seamew on that night. One good stretch to the eastward, until the “Middle” light bore well upon their weather quarter, and the helm was put down; the smack tacked handsomely, though she shipped a sea and filled her deck to the gunwale in the operation, and then away she rushed on the other tack, with the light bearing well upon the lee bow.
In less than an hour from the time of starting the light ship was reached; and as the smack, luffing into the wind, shaved close under the vessel’s stern with all her canvas ashiver, Bill’s stentorian voice pealed out—
“Middle, ahoy! where a way’s the wrack?”
“About a mile and half to the nor’ard, on the weather side of the Gunfleet. Fancy she must have broke up, can’t make her out now. Wish ye good luck,” was the reply.
“Thank’ee,” roared back Bill. “Ease up main and jib-sheets, boys, and stand clear for a jibe.”
Round swept the little Seamew, and in another moment, with the wind on her starboard quarter, she was darting almost with the speed of her namesake, along the weather edge of the shoal, upon her errand of mercy.
All eyes were now keenly directed ahead and on the lee bow, anxiously watching for some indication of the whereabouts of the wreck, and in a few minutes the welcome cry was simultaneously raised by three or four of the watchers, “There she is!”
“Ay, there she is; sure enough!” responded old Bill from his post at the tiller, he having like the rest caught a momentary glimpse under the foot of the main-sail of a shapeless object which had revealed itself for a single instant in the midst of the whirl of boiling breakers, only to be lost sight of again as the leaping waves hurled themselves once more furiously down upon their helpless prey.
As the smack rapidly approached the scene of the disaster the wreck was made out to be that of a large ship, with only the stump of her main-mast standing. She was already fast settling down in the sand, the forepart of the hull being completely submerged, while the sea swept incessantly over the stern, which, with its full poop, formed the sole refuge of the hapless crew.