PEEIL IN PORT. 255 



board the brig-, but he sees more than this he sees the danger of the crowd at the 

 pier-head, for the brig's mainmast is swaying backwards and forwards, coming right over 

 the pier as the vessel rolls, and threatens to break and come down upon the people as 

 the brig strikes the pier ; and if it does it will certainly kill some, perhaps many." 

 Women shriek and men shout, and it looks as though the Marguerite would be wrecked in 

 sight of all. Meantime the crew of the hovelling lugger are in equal, if not greater, danger. 



" As soon as the men on board the lugger saw the brig sweep and crash against the 

 pier, they cast off their tow-rope, but before they could hoist any sail, the way they had 

 on the boat and the rush of the tide carried the lugger almost between the vessel, as 

 she swung round, and the pier. The men, however, escaped that danger, and indeed 

 death, but the boat was swept to the back of the pier, and in the eddy of the tide 

 was carried into the broken waters ; then she rolls in the trough of the sea ; wave 

 after wave catches and sweeps her up towards the pier, as if to crush her against it, 

 but each time the rebound of the water from the pier acts as a fender and saves her 

 from destruction ; but she is an open boat, and if one big wave leaps on board it will 

 fill her, and she must sink at once; and the seas a-round her are very wild, the surf 

 from their crests breaks into her continually. The people on the pier see her extreme 

 peril; some run to the life-boat men, who are preparing to moor the boat, and shout to 

 them to hasten out that the brig is breaking up, and that the lugger will be 

 swamped ; before, however, the life-boat can get out the brig is towed clear of the pier, 

 and, the lugger having drifted to the end of the pier, the men are able to get up a 

 corner of the foresail ; it cants the lugger's head round ; the men get the foresail well 

 up : it fills ; she draws away from the pier and away from the broken water, and is clear." 

 But now the brig, the rudder of which had been wrenched out of her on the Sands, has 

 no boat to help her steer, and lurches about in all directions. A heavy sea strikes her 

 bow ; the steamer's hawser tightens, strains, and breaks ! Excited people on the pier 

 crowd round the harbour-master, and beg him to order the life-boat men to take the 

 crew and the boatmen off the wreck at once. That official knows, however, the boatmen 

 too well : tliey will not leave her while a stitch holds together. 



The captain of the steamer knows their peril, and backs his vessel down to the 

 wreck, now not over a hundred yards from the Dyke Sand. She is rolling heavily, and 

 the seas sweep over her; her crew can hardly keep the deck. The steamer gets close to 

 the brig, and soon another cable is out. Each time the brig sheers heavily to one side 

 or the other she is brought up with a jerk that makes the steamer tremble from 

 stem to stern, but that plucky little boat is not to be beaten. Five brave fellows come 

 off from the pier in a small boat, bringing a line with them : with this they haul a 

 second hawser to the wreck ; a crowd of people on the pier pull their hardest, and succeed 

 in moving the wreck. This cable breaks shortly afterwards, but the steamer has by this 

 tim^ again got hold of the vessel, and tows her safely into the harbour, a miserable 

 wreck, with masts and rudder gone, her bow and stern crushed, but with everybody safe 

 on board. The Marguerite was ultimately repaired and sent to sea again, though she 

 could never be the vessel she once was. And the Margate and Ramsgate men got a few 

 pounds each for work that required each one to be a hero, and a very practical and sea- 



