But still the French sailors struggle to get hold of the ropes, crying out, "Much danger, much danger! What shall we do? what shall we do?" The outcry of the people on the pier naturally adding greatly to their excitement.
During this time, which has occupied but very few minutes, the steamer still keeps hold of the hawser. She has been swung against the inside of the pier by the strain of the wreck upon her cable, and by the eddy of the tide, while the wreck has been beating against the outside; now she steams out again with all speed, gets her head round, brings a gradual strain upon the hawser, and makes every effort to tow the brig away from the pier and off the Sands; after a few seconds of hard tugging the brig begins to move, and they get her into deep water again.
But during this time the crew of the Margate lugger have been in equal, if not greater, danger than the men on board the brig.
As soon as the men on board the lugger saw the brig sweep and crash against the pier, they cast off their tow rope, but before they could hoist any sail, the way they had on the boat, and the rush of the tide, carried the lugger almost between the vessel, as she swung round, and the pier; the men, however, escaped that danger, and indeed death, but the boat was swept to the back of the pier, and in the eddy of the tide was carried into the broken water; there she rolls in the trough of the sea; wave after wave catches and sweeps her up towards the pier as if to crush her against it; but each time the rebound of the water from the pier acts as a fender, and saves her from destruction; but she is an open boat, and if one big wave leaps on board it will fill her, and she must sink at once; and the seas around her are very wild, the surf from their crests breaks into her continually; the people on the pier see her extreme peril; some run to the life-boat men who are preparing to moor the boat, and shout to them to hasten out—that the brig is breaking up, and that the lugger will be swamped; before, however, the life-boat can get out, the brig is towed clear of the pier, and the lugger having gradually drifted to the end of the pier, the men are able to get up a corner of the fore-sail; it cants the lugger's head round; the men get the fore-sail well up; it fills, she draws away from the pier, and away from the broken water, and is clear.
The steamer has the brig in tow, but now the wreck has no boats to help her steer, and she therefore yaws about with tremendous lurches.
The boatmen have all this time been working their utmost; their danger and the scene of excitement around them having no other effect upon them, than to make them the more cool and determined to do everything they can to save the vessel and themselves.
They rig up a stay-sail upon the tottering mainmast, and as soon as the steamer gets a little way on the brig, they try and steer by it, raising and lowering the sail as the brig sheers one way or the other, and doing their utmost to keep her head straight.
A very heavy sea strikes her on the bow, and she lurches right across the tide; at that moment the steamer's hawser tightens and strains, and the whole weight of the brig as she lies broadside to the seas dragging upon the rope, it breaks in a weak place, where it has got chafed against the pier.
The brig falls into the trough of the sea; the waves begin to make a clean breach over her; water-logged and helpless as she is, with her deck down almost to the level of the sea; the men on board can now do but little, for time after time, as the seas sweep her decks, they have enough to do to hold on; still the boatmen on board work when they can, for they see that their lives depend upon getting the vessel in tow of the steamer before she can strike the Dyke Bank, which is just under her lee.
They make all haste to haul in the broken end of the cable; they already have a good part of the cable on board, which they hauled in when they were about making for the harbour.