The wind was from the northeast and the driving sleet and snow shut out from view all that portion of the rocky coast save in the immediate vicinity of the station. During the afternoon the gale had increased in force until it was what a mariner would call “stiff”; the sea had risen with equal pace, and every indication confirmed the prediction made among the surfmen, that an ugly winter storm was at hand.
At such a time the gallant life-saving crews along the coast are ever ready for, and expecting, the signal which calls them to their perilous work; but not ordinarily do they stand by their apparatus as on this afternoon, for, fortunately, many a winter tempest fails in its harvest of death.
At noon on this day information was sent to the station that the patrol several miles down the coast had sighted a large ship so nearly inshore that, under the adverse condition of wind and sea, she could not tack, and there was not sufficient room to wear. Unless her course was speedily changed, so ran the information received,—and in the teeth of the fierce northeast tempest and the shoreward heaving of the tremendous sea that seemed impossible,—it was certain she must strike somewhere nearabout this particular station.
From the moment such information was received the patrol on the beach had been doubled, and, knowing full well how difficult it would be, under all the circumstances, for any craft to escape the perils to which it was said this ship was exposed, the crew were keenly on the alert for the first token of wreck.
At seven o’clock in the evening no further news of the vessel had been obtained; therefore the men whose mission it is to save life understood that the ship was still fighting against the gale, and knew full well every moment gained by her increased the chances of escape, even though it had seemed impossible she could weather the point.
Half an hour later Surfman Samuel Hardy, breathless and panting, literally burst his way into the station, as he cried:
“Joe Cushing has just lighted his signal!”
All members of life-saving crews carry, while patrolling the shore on the lookout for signs of danger to others, what is known as a “Coston signal,” an ingenious contrivance which can be lighted by concussion, and, therefore, may be displayed regardless of the weather.
No further information was necessary; the crew knew full well that the ship previously reported as being in peril, and which had made such a gallant fight against the elements, had at last been conquered.
Before Sam Hardy could take his station at the beach-wagon, in which is transported all the apparatus necessary for the work of the crew when a wreck is close inshore, Joseph Cushing arrived: