There is a moment's question as to the order in which the men shall go, for each feels that at any moment the boat may sink under them; it is quickly decided that the men shall leave the boat in the order in which they sit, and one after another, they plunge into the waves, and are hauled on board through the seas.
All safe at last! and very soon the boat fills and turns over, and hangs there held by the ropes till the morning. As soon as the men have shaken the water a little from their clothes, and have wiped their eyes and faces somewhat clear, the captain says, "I suppose you have come from the barque that was riding near at the beginning of the gale, and which I missed after a squall, and which must have foundered." (It was supposed that two or three ships went down with all hands that night). "No, sir; we have come from no barque, we were blown away from a wreck some hours ago, near the North Sands Head, and have drifted right over the Goodwin."
"Impossible! impossible! no boat could live in such a sea, and over the Sands, impossible!"—"It is true, sir; we are Ramsgate boatmen and belong to a lugger; we went in from her on to the Sands to a wreck, and could not get back to her again." And the captain declares that their escape has been wonderful indeed. The feelings of the men at finding themselves safe are perfectly overwhelming; the reaction after those long hours of almost hopeless and constant struggle; it is too much for them, especially added, as it is, to the condition of physical exhaustion to which they are reduced. Some of them can scarcely speak; one of them, realizing the almost miracle by which they have been saved, leans against the boom, repeating in a broken voice, "What, I saved! I saved—I saved! one of the worst! one of the worst!" Another can only think of the words he had so often repeated to one of his mates, who had seemed almost dying during the night. "Come, cheer up! come, cheer up! stick to your oar, keep up your heart, man," and he continues for some time repeating these words in a strange dreamy way.
The coxswain, upon whom the chief anxiety and greatest stress of mind had fallen, for he had hour, after hour, to sit watching every sea as it rolled to them and meet it with the tiller, felt more than the others the effect of the night's work; he soon after fell very ill, was nigh to death's door, and did not recover his strength for a twelvemonth. The captain, officers, and crew of the American ship are full of sympathy and kindness.
The captain takes the men into his cabin, and gives them each a little brandy, then offers them dry clothes, and orders beds to be made up for them in the cabin: the clothes and the bed the men think too kind, but the beef-steak supper and the glass of grog all round, as soon as they have eaten a little, is not to be refused; and the hardy fellows are soon sound asleep on the cabin-floor, with all their perils for a time forgotten. In the morning the gale has greatly abated; the men have a hearty breakfast provided by the hospitable captain: their boat is by his orders hauled up, baled out, and as everything has been washed out of her, the captain lends them oars, and they start for Ramsgate, giving their most hearty thanks for the great skill with which they were got on board the ship and saved, and for the kindness they have received on board.
When the crew of the Champion lugger had put the men she had saved from the wreck on board the life-boat, they found that they could not well get back to Ramsgate in the then state of the wind and tide, and they were forced to run for Dover.
The men on board the Princess Alice remained in the greatest state of anxiety as to the fate of their comrades who went into the wreck in their little boat, and waited on, and on, in the position in which the boat must come to them, if she clears the Sands; hour after hour she cruises backwards and forwards, her crew keeping most anxious watch, and then runs down the back of the Sands, thinking it possible the boat might get out somewhere there; the gale increases; the night comes on; the high tide has swept over the whole of the Sands with its wild seas long before this, and they can only conclude, which they do most positively and sorrowfully, that their companions in many a hard struggle—their friends since childhood—have been lost, overwhelmed in the rage of the sea on the Goodwin. They therefore give up the search, and now regard their own safety, and they also find that they cannot reach Ramsgate, but must make away for Dover.
Arriving there, they at once telegraph the sad news to Ramsgate, that they have lost six hands; news that creates the greatest excitement in the town. The next morning the Princess Alice starts at daylight for another cruise round the Sands, hardly with the hope of finding their lost comrades, but possibly fragments of the boat may be found; but they search in vain, and feeling their fears to be altogether confirmed, they steer for Ramsgate. There the arrival of the lugger is most anxiously awaited, and the report of the men increases the excitement, and sorrow, and sympathy, which had been created by the telegraph sent the night before, and now that the names of the missing men are known, there is sad, sad, grief among their supposed widows, and orphans, and their friends.