“I knows it, Joe, an’ the more need to look sharp.”
Returning to the ship, our coxswain made his report, and recommended urgent haste. But the captain required no urging, for by that time the ship’s main deck was level with the water, and the seas were making a clean breach over the stern. The passengers and crew crowded towards the port gangway where the large boat was being brought round to receive the women and children first. This was such a familiar scene to the two lifeboat men that they kept cool and self-possessed from the mere force of habit. Seeing this, the captain ordered Mitford to get into the boat first, and help to stow the others, for it would be a tight pack, he said, to stow them all. Dr Hayward was ordered to assist. Ned Jarring volunteered to help to fend the boat off during the operation, and, without waiting for permission, jumped into her.
Mitford had consigned his wife to the care of his friend Massey, who at once undertook the duty by tying a kerchief round Peggy’s head to keep her hair out of her eyes, after which he did the same for Nellie. Both women were perfectly quiet and submissive—the first owing to fear and exhaustion, the last from native courage, which enabled her to rise to the occasion. Massey then stripped off all his own clothes, except shirt and trousers, so as to be ready for swimming, and, catching up a rope, advanced towards his wife, intending to fasten it round her waist.
“Peggy first, Bob; I’ll wait for you,” said his wife.
“Look sharp!” cried the captain.
Bob turned at once to Peggy, and in a few seconds she was lowered into the boat. Mrs Hayward followed. Then Massey insisted on his wife going, and the obedient Nellie submitted, but, owing to a lurch of the ship at the moment, she missed the boat, and dropped into the water. One of the men attempted to pull her in, but could not, and, as all the others were engaged at the moment in trying to fend off the rocks, Massey at once jumped into the sea, and helped to get his wife into the boat.
At that moment there arose a cry that the ship was sinking, and a wild rush was made for the long-boat, which had also been successfully launched. Of course it was instantly overcrowded, for all discipline was now at an end. Before anything else could be done the Lapwing sank in sixteen fathoms of water, carrying the long-boat and all the people in her along with it, but those in the other boat had shoved off at the first wild cry, and hauling on the anchored cable, just escaped being sucked down by the sinking ship.
Bob Massey clung to the boat’s gunwale, and thus escaped. Rowing back instantly, however, to the spot where the ship had gone down, they sought eagerly for swimmers. Only three were discovered and rescued, but the others—seventy souls in all—found a watery grave in the dark cavern of that unknown land.