“She will be lost to a certainty,” cried the seamen in the crowd.
Just then the dark sail of the lugger was seen, now lifted up, as she rose on the top of the sea, now sinking down into the trough. On she came. Those on board must have been well aware of the fate awaiting them. Still they made no attempt to haul off.
Harry, calling to the people assembled, formed a party of men with ropes and spars who, secured one to the other, were to rush into the sea, and endeavour to drag out those who were washed overboard. Others were to stand by, ready to carry them up the beach out of the reach of the waves. The arrangements were made not a moment too soon. With a loud crash the lugger was seen rushing up the beach. In another instant, the following sea, with a loud roar, washed completely over her, and she was driven broadside on to the shore.
Chapter Twenty Nine.
Happy News.
Several persons were carried off the decks of the wreck, and had it not been for the hardihood of those who rushed into the water, would inevitably have been swept away. Some of the crew, as the sea receded, leaped overboard and endeavoured to gain the shore. They also were helped in the same manner. Several poor fellows, however, were unable to reach the friendly hands held out to them, and were carried out by the waves. One of the number was, in another minute, dimly seen to be struggling forward on the curling summit of a foaming sea. Harry, who had ever been a bold swimmer, casting a rope about himself, now dashed in towards the almost exhausted man. Bravely he swam forward. He clasped him in his arms, and then shouting to his companions, was hauled up the beach in safety. A few more seas, came rushing in, and scarce a plank or timber of the lugger hung together. The greater number of the persons on board had been saved. They seemed, however, to be no strangers to most of the people on the beach. For some minutes Harry had been so busily engaged in rescuing others that he had not had time to speak to the person he had drawn out of the water. Great was his surprise, on returning to the drier part of the beach, when the light of a lantern fell on a man’s countenance he recognised—the features of his old acquaintance, Captain Falwasser. Several other persons were seated near him: one was a female, and the other an old man.
“What, my friend Harry Tryon!” exclaimed the captain, grasping him. “My life, I know, is not the first you have saved. Harry, I have news for you,” he said, as if recollecting himself. “You shall have it by-and-bye. But these poor people require to be housed. They are shivering with the cold, and I must confess that I should like to find myself before a warm fire.”
“Our cottage is at the service of as many as can get into it,” said Mr Kyffin, coming up to the captain. “Our friends here will, I have no doubt, take care of the rest.”