Now the boat is through the broken seas away from the terrible Sands, out in the deep water; the men have time to look at each other; and how gladly, and yes, how fondly, they do so. Strangers though they be, yet at that moment their hearts are warm to each other with more than a brother's love—all is gladness and thankfulness; they shake hands, the rescuers and the rescued, time after time.
The saved crew are ten in number. They are Danes, and the wreck the Danish barque Aurora Borealis.
Some of the sailors can speak a little broken English, and in such terms as they are able the poor fellows express the depth of their gratitude, and their wonder at being saved.
The boat makes for the steamer, which is coming down rapidly to meet her; the crew of the steamer greet the life-boatmen with cheers! Who can describe the joy they all feel at the successful ending of their long battle with terrible danger and threatened death! and great indeed is their sympathy with the saved from death, for whom they and the boatmen have so willingly, and to the very utmost, risked their own lives.
They lift the captain on board the steamer; he is thoroughly exhausted; they carry him into the engine-room, and in the warmth there, do their best to revive him, and he soon recovers. The Danish seamen will not leave the boat; the life-boat crew tell the mate that his men would be much more comfortable on board the steamer, that the seas will be washing over the boat all the way in; but no, as so frequently happens on such occasions, and as has been before noticed, the rescued men feel so grateful to the life-boatmen, that they are not content to leave the boat until they get to land. And the mate replies, "No! you saved us, you saved us; we thought you never, never do it; you had plenty trouble; we stop with you." And they would not desert their friends, their brothers indeed, who had done so much to save them.
In Ramsgate the anxiety is very great.
The steamer and life-boat have been out many hours, nothing can be seen of them in the mist that hangs over the Goodwin Sands.
"Can anything have happened?" is the question that is restlessly put from one to another.
It might well be so, in the terrific sea that must have been raging on the Goodwin in so fearful a storm.
At about half-past two, hundreds of people are collected on the pier; for the news that the life-boat is out always spreads like wildfire through the town; and if there is any cause for anxiety on her account, the whole town soon shares the apprehension, and throngs of anxious men crowd the pier and harbour. Now the men who are anxiously on the watch make out something looming in the mist; and speedily the steamer and life-boat are seen, their flags are flying, glad sign of successful effort, of rescue effected; and great is the joy of all the lookers-on; steamer and life-boat speed between the massive granite heads of the two piers, and the crowd that looks down upon them as they come pitching and rolling along, greet them with cheer after cheer.