“Right, lad!” cried Captain Boyns, who came up at the instant and leaped into the boat. “Come, lads, we want four more hands—no, no, Harry,” he added, pushing back his son; “your arms are not yet strong enough; come lads, we’ve no time to lose.”
As he spoke, a faint cry was heard coming from the wreck, and it was seen that one of the masts had gone by the board, carrying, it was feared, several poor fellows along with it. Instantly there was a rush to the lifeboat! All thought of personal danger appeared to have been banished from the minds of the fishermen when the cry of distress broke on their ears. The boat was overmanned, and old Jacobs, the coxswain, had to order several of them to go ashore again. In another minute they were at the mouth of the harbour, and the men paused an instant as if to gather strength for the mortal struggle before quitting the shelter of the breakwater, and facing the fury of wind and waves.
“Give way, lads! give way!” shouted old Jacobs, as he stood up in the stern-sheets and grasped the steering oar.
The men bent to the oars with all their might, and the boat leaped out into the boiling sea. This was not one of those splendid boats which now line the shores of the United Kingdom; nevertheless, it was a noble craft—one of the good, stable, insubmergible and self-emptying kind which were known as the Greathead lifeboats, and which for many years did good service on our coasts. It sat on the raging waters like a swan, and although the seas broke over it again and again, it rose out of the water buoyantly, and, with the brine pouring from its sides, kept end-on to the seas, surmounting them or dashing right through them, while her gallant crew strained every muscle and slowly urged her on towards the wreck.
At first the men on shore gazed at her in breathless anxiety, expecting every moment to see her overturned and their comrades left to perish in the waves; but when they saw her reappear from each overwhelming billow, their hearts rose with a rebound, and loud prolonged huzzas cheered the lifeboat on her course. They became silent again, however, when distance and the intervening haze of spray and rain rendered her motions indistinct, and their feelings of anxiety became more and more intense as they saw her draw nearer and nearer to the wreck.
At last they reached it, but no one on the pier could tell with what success their efforts were attended. Through the blinding spray they saw her faintly, now rising on the crest of a huge wave, then overwhelmed by tons of water. At last she appeared to get close under the stern of the brig, and was lost to view.
“They’re all gone,” said a fisherman on the pier, as he wiped the salt water off his face; “I know’d that no boat that ever wos built could live in that sea.”
“Ye don’t know much yet, Bill, ’bout anything a’most,” replied an old man near him. “Why, I’ve see’d boats in the East, not much better than two planks, as could go through a worse surf than that.”
“May be so,” retorted Bill, “but I know—hallo! is that her coming off?”
“That’s her,” cried several voices—“all right, my hearties.”