The Lifeboat

by R. M. Ballantyne

It was during the formation of this raft that the great value of the life-belts became manifest. While the spars were in a loose and half-fastened state, the men were obliged to work in the water. To have done this without the support of the belts would have been very exhausting, almost impossible; but with their floating power the men could work with both hands, and move about almost as freely in the water as on land.

The life-buoys were also of the greatest value at this time; for the burning ship became so hot, before the raft was ready, that the passengers were obliged to jump overboard and get upon it as they best could, or float about until there was room for them all. In these circumstances the buoys were the means of saving the lives of some who could not swim.

It was late in the evening when the raft was commenced, and night was far advanced before it was completed. During all this time the boats remained close to it, after having hauled it a short distance from the burning ship, which latter was now a mass of flame from the deck to the mast-heads, rendering the whole scene as bright as day. After the rigging was consumed, and the masts had fallen over the side, the hull continued to burn, for a considerable time, with less flame but with a dull red glow that afforded sufficient light to the workers. It was fortunate the light lasted so long, for the night was so dark that it would otherwise have been almost impossible to have worked at the raft—tossed and rolled about as it was by the heavy sea.

It was a strange weird sight, that busy glowing scene of disaster out upon the black ocean at midnight; and wonderful—unaccountable—did it appear in the eyes of the night-watch on board the “Trident,” as that ship came over the sea, ploughing up the water before a steady breeze which had sprung up soon after the sun went down.

“What can it be?” said Mr Denham to the captain when they first observed the light on the horizon.

“A steamer, perhaps,” replied the captain.

“No steamer ever spouted fire like that,” said Bax, who was the only other passenger on deck, all the others having gone to rest; “the steamers on the American lakes and rivers do indeed spout sparks and flames of fire like giant squibs, but then they burn wood. Ocean steamers never flare up like that. I fear it is a ship on fire.”

“Think you so? Steer straight for it, captain,” said Mr Denham, whose heart, under the influence of bad health, and, latterly, of considerable experience in the matter of human suffering, had become a little softer than it used to be.

The ship’s course was altered, and long before the wreck was reached her decks swarmed with men and women who had got up in haste at the first mention of the word “fire”—some of them with a confused notion that their own vessel was in danger!

It was indeed a novel and terribly interesting sight to most of those on board the “Trident.” At first they saw the burning vessel like a red meteor rising on the waves and disappearing in the hollows; then the flames grew fierce, and spread a halo round the doomed ship that shone out vividly against the surrounding darkness. This latter was rendered intensely deep by contrast with the light. Then the masts went over the side, and a bright volume of sparks and scattered tongues of flame shot up into, the sky, after which the hull shone like a glow-worm until they drew quite near. The busy workers at the raft were too anxiously intent on their occupation to observe the approach of the “Trident,” whose black hull was nearly invisible, and whose small lanterns might well have been overlooked on such an occasion.