“Ay, that I did,” returned Jeff, with feelings of great anxiety. “’Twas uncommon like Captain Millet.”
“Look out for the rope!” roared one of the lifeboat men, as he swung and discharged the loaded stick with a line attached.
The heave was successful. The men on the maintop of the wreck caught the line, and by means of it passed a stout warp between the mast and the boat, down which they began to shin like squirrels, for the prompt appearance of their rescuers had not left time for the exhaustion of their strength.
“Is your vessel the North Star, commanded by Captain Millet?” shouted Jeff in the ear of the first arrival, for the noise of raging elements rendered ordinary tones almost useless.
“Ay, she is,” replied the man; “but you won’t see him till the last of us is safe aboard.”
“Hallo! Captain Millet!” cried Jeff, with a roar that almost equalled the elements.
“Ay, ay, is that you, Jeff?” came back in a similar roar (but greatly softened by distance) from the swirling spray-clouds that raged above the wreck.
“Cheer up, Captain; we’ll save you all right,” returned our coastguardsman in another enthusiastic roar, which of itself did something to cheer up all who heard it.
About a dozen of the sailors had been got into the lifeboat, when a tremendous rending sound was heard, followed by a loud cry of alarm, as the mast broke off a few feet above the deck, and plunged, with the men still upon it, into the boiling sea. To add to the confusion and terror, some part of the cordage caught the lifeboat, and completely sank as well as overturned it.
To an ignorant observer it might have seemed that all hope was gone—that every man must perish. But this was not so. The buoyant qualities of the magnificent lifeboat brought it to the surface like a cork the instant it was freed. Its self-righting qualities turned it on its keel. The self-acting discharging tubes emptied it in less than two minutes; and the crew, supported by their cork life-belts, caught the life-lines festooned round the boat’s side for this very purpose, and clambered into her.