“You are right, my friend. Heaven protect and prosper you,” said the baronet. “You’ll come up in the evening to hear the carol-singers. There’ll be a cup of mead ready for you, and for your people, too, if they will come.”
“Thank ye, Sir Baldwin; we’ll come,” said several voices, and the pilot’s crew hurried down to their boat.
The pilot vessel made several tacks along shore before stretching out to sea. She had made her last tack, and was standing off the land when, near the very reef on which the Sea-Gull was lost, Paul thought he saw the mast of a vessel. He called for his spy-glass. The boy brought it to him. Just then the snow cleared off somewhat.
“There are some poor fellows clinging to it, too,” he exclaimed. “Ease off the jib-sheet! Down with the helm! we must beat up to them.”
“Poor fellows! poor fellows! I hope that they will hold on till we reach them,” he exclaimed several times, as he himself went to the helm, that he might make the vessel do her best, for tide and wind were against her. Just then a large ship hove in sight, with a signal for a pilot. “She can wait; these poor fellows cannot,” he said, as he looked towards her. “She would have paid us heavy pilotage, too.”
As the Lady Isabel drew near the wreck, one of the people on the mast was seen waving a hat feebly. The others appeared to be lashed to it, but unable to move. The cutter was hove-to and the boat lowered. There was a broken sea running, and it was a work of difficulty and danger. Six men were clinging to the mast, most of them more dead than alive from the wet and cold.
“Take our young officer off first, pilot,” said one of the men; “he’s furthest gone.”
Two of the most active of the pilot’s crew climbed the mast, and brought down the almost lifeless form of a young midshipman. Only two other men could be carried in the small pilot-boat at a time.
“Why, if it isn’t Master Harry Treherne!” exclaimed old Paul Petherwick, as he received the lad in his arms, and deposited him in the bottom of the boat. “Pull, my sons, pull! the sooner we get him between the warm blankets the better.”
Harry Treherne, for it was indeed he, was quickly conveyed on board the Lady Isabel, and placed in the old pilot’s bed, where, with the aid of a glass of grog (the sailor’s specific in all maladies—in this instance the best that could be applied), he soon regained his consciousness. His first inquiries were for the rest of his crew. Five had been saved, but the rest, with old Hulks, had been lost. The cutter was now rapidly nearing the small harbour close to the manor house.