Away go steamer and life-boat, the crew of both alike eager to make up for lost time, and they soon discover the vessel they are in search of looming out in the mist.
They see that she is a complete wreck, and that she is settled down upon the Sands, with her bow to the seas; her mizen-mast is gone close to the deck; the seas are running quite over her as they break upon her bow; they mount up and fly over her fore-yard and race along her deck, breaking again upon her deck-house, which they smother in foam.
There are no sailors to be seen lashed to the rigging, and it is doubtful whether they can have found shelter anywhere on deck, so great is the rush of water over the ship. Indeed, the life-boat men think that it is very improbable that any of the crew can be left on board. Nevertheless, they determine to get on board the vessel, and see if they can find any poor exhausted seaman still clinging to some portion of the wreck.
There is a very heavy sea running, and they have a short consultation as to the best method of getting alongside the vessel; they determine to go in upon the lee quarter, and make preparation for so doing. Now they make in for the wreck; they sail in swiftly; plunge in through the broken water; their anchor is all ready; they watch their distance. Over with it; lower the foresail; and they are about to run the life-boat right alongside the vessel, when the man in the bow shouts, "Up with your helm; up with it hard; sheer off, sheer off!" Up the helm is; swiftly the boat answers, and bears away from the vessel.
The mizen-mast, which had been broken off short, has fallen over the quarter of the vessel, and become entangled in the Sands, and with the ship's side, and is standing out at right angles to the wreck, right in the way the life-boat was steering. If it had been night-time the boat would have been steered in right upon the wreck of the mast and yards, when in every probability she would have been stove and rolled over by the seas; the men would then have been washed out of her, and it would have been impossible for them to have got back to her again, against the rush of sea and tide and entangled as she would have been in the wreckage of the mast, she could not have floated down to them; as it is, this very catastrophe nearly happens, for the men hardly see the danger in time; it is a moment of great peril, for the boat is being tossed about violently in the broken water, and becomes somewhat entangled in the wreckage; the men lay hold of the cable, and haul upon it with all their strength, and do what they can to check the way of the boat, and help her head round; now they get a good cant out, they throw out some coils of the cable in one cast, they sheer out well, and get clear of the wreck of the mizen-mast; the seas catch the boat and drive it astern of the vessel, the cable runs out its full length and brings the boat up with a strong jerk. The men, on looking at the wreck, are glad to find that there are some of her crew still alive; they can see three men and a boy crouching down, under the shelter of the deck-house, but they must be but a small proportion of the original crew of the ship, for she is a large vessel, and must have had a crew of certainly not fewer than fifteen or sixteen men. "Thank God," say the life-boat men, "that they are not all gone, and that we are here in time to try and save some."
The shipwrecked men have been crouching there for some hours, and have been getting more and more wretched, cold, wet, exhausted, and hopeless; every now and then they heard the loud boom of a gun from one of the light-vessels, but no life-boat came, and the wreck might at any moment break up; they at first felt confident that a life-boat would certainly soon come to their rescue, and had prepared for her coming by getting a life-buoy with a long line fastened to it, ready to throw overboard.
But the hours passed by, the seas broke over the vessel with increasing violence, the storm grew more and more wild, they could not understand why the life-boat did not come, but she did not, and they began to despair of being saved.
Suddenly, as they crouch under the deck-house in their hopeless misery, they see the life-boat swing round on the tide, and come up to her cable just astern of the ship; never were men more agreeably surprised; it is as a reprieve from death; and they feel their blood course again through their veins, their strength returns, and they start up ready for action; the life-boat men give them a cheer, which they answer with glad cries of welcome.
The men on board the wreck throw the life-buoy and line to the life-boat men; there is a tremendous tumble of sea, the life-boat is flying about in all directions, and it is not for some time, and not until after much trouble, that they succeed in getting the life-buoy on board the boat.
All hands lay hold of the rope, and do their utmost to haul the life-boat nearer to the wreck; but the heavy gale, the rush of the sea, and the strong tide, are all directly against her, her cable is straining to the utmost, and they cannot get her to move in the least; they struggle on, and on, but it is all in vain.