A large light schooner has driven from her anchorage, and is now dragging perilously near the Goodwin Sands. She is too near, with the wind as it is, to have any chance of escaping by slipping her cable and sailing clear of the Sands; she is driving fast, and the large flag, that she has hoisted as a signal of distress, can be very distinctly seen from the cliff. The watchers on shore, by taking her bearings, see how rapidly she is dragging her anchors and nearing her doom; and the nature of the tremendous sea she is in is also very evident.
She is light, buoyant, and lifts to every wave; she looks like a gallant charger taking a succession of desperate leaps, as first her bow is thrown high in the air, and she then rides for a moment high upon the top of the wave, and then again her stern is thrown high, and her bow is almost buried as the huge short wave passes under her. Repeatedly those who are watching her from the shore, have their fears aroused that her straining cables have at last parted, and that she is in full career for the waiting deadly Sands. It is an alarming sight. The lookers-on from the cliff only take their eyes off her to look occasionally at the steamer and life-boat as they are making their way to her rescue.
The steamer rolls and plunges on—nothing daunted, nothing disturbed, by all the buffeting she gets; the life-boat rises like a cork to every wave, and plunges through the crests as she feels the drag of the steamer, while the foam spreads out on either side like a fan, and the scud and spray fly over her in a cloud.
The steamer and life-boat make their way to the Gull Lightship, where they learn that a schooner has been seen in distress, bearing south-south-west, supposed to be on the South Sand Head.
On through the giant seas and driving surf, in the very teeth of the gale, they make gallant way, and are about to take up a position from which the life-boat can dash in through the broken water to the rescue of the crew.
A large Deal lugger is beating up to windward from the neighbourhood of the Sands, they speak her, and learn that she has rescued the crew of the schooner.
The lugger, one of the finest of all the noble boats that sail from Deal beach, had, some time before the schooner got into such a dangerous position, sheered alongside her, at no slight risk, and as she shot by, the crew had jumped into her, forgetting in their hurry and excitement the flag of distress which they had left flying high, pleading still, and not in vain, for help that was no longer needed. Nothing can be done for the schooner; driving fast, she soon begins to thump on the Sands; darkness settles down upon her, the fierce waves have her for their prey, and in the morning not one remaining fragment of her is to be seen; she has been torn utterly to pieces, and what the tide has not swept away, the Sands have completely buried.
The steamer and life-boat, when they leave the schooner to her fate, make for a barque, which, with main and mizen masts cut away, seems, although she is in great danger, to have a chance of weathering the storm.
The wind is too heavy, and the tide too strong, for the steamer to be able to tow her into a safer position; her crew have already made their escape, and she is left in turn, but not, as it proves, to meet the fate of the schooner, for she successfully rides out the gale.