The weather was clearing fast and 'fining down' when the coxswain roused all hands to 'get up the anchor.' The foresail was set, and then a man in the bows cried out, 'I can see something there—there's the wreck!'—and, indeed, there it was, not more than four hundred yards distant.
Now the sky was lighted up a rosy red, so fast came on the 'jocund morn a tiptoe' over the waves.
'There's a man running away from the wreck!' said the coxswain.
He had descried the bright blue lifeboat with the red wale round her gunwale, and was running to meet her in the direction she was heading. But the lifeboat was making short tacks to windward, and the coxswain taking off his sou'-wester waved it to the running figure to come back and follow the lifeboat on the other tack.
Back again came the solitary man, and then at last was given the final order from the coxswain, 'Run straight into the surf to meet him!' and the lifeboat, carried on by a huge roller, grounded on the sands.
Running, staggering, pressing on, the rescued man came close to the lifeboat, and then fell forwards on his knees with face uplifted to the heavens, and his back to the lifeboat.
'They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.… Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses.… Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!'
Now rose the glorious sun, darting his golden javelins high up into the blue majestical canopy; and cheerily into the water, now burnished by the sunbeams, sprang Alfred Redsull, danger and hardship all forgotten, with a line round his waist, to guide and help the exhausted man away from the deadly 'fox-falls,' which were full of swirling water, and at last into the lifeboat. Then with bated breath they learned the story,—that all the rest were gone, and that the captain himself was the solitary survivor. His hands were in gloves; they cut those off, and also his boots, so swelled were hands and feet. They gave him a dry pair of long stockings and woollen mittens, and they let down the mizzen and made a lee for him under its shelter, for he was half perished with the cold of that bitter night. After a few minutes he insisted on again searching the sands for his lost crew, and the coxswain and others of the lifeboatmen went with him.
The lifeboat was by this time high and dry, for the water was falling with great rapidity, and there was a mile of dry sand on each side of her. The company of men now searched the sands, and a long way off the coxswain saw a dark object.
'What's that?' he said.