DANGERS TO THE LIFE-BOAT. 227 



again/' says the narrator, " she half lifts upon an even keel, and rolls and lurches from 

 side to side ; each time that she falls to leeward she comes more and more over, and nearer 

 to the boat. 



" This is the danger that may well make the stoutest heart quail. The boat is 

 aground helplessly aground ; her crew can see through the darkness of the night the 

 yards and masts of the brig swaying over their heads, now tossing high in the air as 

 the brig rights, and now falling nearer and nearer to them, sweeping down over their 

 heads, swaying and rending in the air, the blocks, and ropes, and torn fragments of 

 sails flying wildly in all directions. Let but one of the swaying yards hit the boat, 

 she must be crushed, and all lost. The men crouch down closer and closer, clinging to 

 the thwarts as the brig falls to them, casting dread glances at the approaching yards ; 

 all right once more ; another pull at the cable hard, men, hard ; over again comes the 

 brig ; stick to it, stick to it, my men ; crushed or drowned, it will be soon over if we 

 cannot move the boat ; another pull ; all together ; again and again they make desperate efforts 

 to stir the boat, but she will not move one inch; they must wait, and, if needs be, wait 

 their doom/' And so through hours of fearful suspense, half dead with cold and the 

 ceaseless rush of surf over them, watching in the shadowy darkness the swaying masts 

 and flying blocks, expecting- each moment to be their last. 



But at length a dawn of hope arrived ; the boat lifted on the swell of the tide that was 

 beginning to reach her, and though she immediately grounded again, the men knew that all was 

 not lost. After desperate hauling on the cable they at last were able to ride to their anchor a 

 few yards clear of the brig. But to get away from the sand in the face of the fierce gale and 

 tide was impossible, and so there was no alternative, they must beat right across the sands, and 

 this in the wild fearful gale, and terrible sea, and pitch-dark night. Breaker after breaker 

 rushed furiously towards and over them ; the men were nearly washed out of the boat ; 

 and, worse, the anchor began to drag, and every moment they drifted nearer to the 

 wreck again. There might now be water enough to take them clear; at all events, 

 they must risk it. The foresail was hoisted and the cable cut, and she leaped forward, 

 but only for a few yards, when she grounded upon the sands again with a terrible shock, 

 and again within reach of the brig. Huge breakers came tearing along, and, at last, 

 after many such experiences, they were once more clear of the wreck. Then another danger 

 arose. A small life-boat belonging to the Broadstairs men had been in tow all this 

 time, and when the Ramsgate boat grounded she came crashing along into her. The 

 Ramsgate men had, in the midst of the boiling sea, to fend her off with their feet, 

 and at last cut her adrift. The sea-chests of the Portuguese sailors or at least those 

 not already washed away were thrown overboard. Again and again she grounded on 

 the sand ridges washed up by the surf ridges giant editions of the little sand-ripples on 

 the sea-shore so well remembered by all visitors to our coasts, but two and three 

 feet high, instead of as many inches. 



" One old boatman/' says Gilmore, " afterwards thus described his feelings : ' Well, 

 sir, perhaps my friends were right when they said I hadn't ought to have gone out 

 that I was too old for that sort of work ' (he was then about sixty years of age) , ' but, 

 you see, when there is life to be saved, it makes one feel young again; and I've 



