140 Star anfr Meatbet Gossip 



When the spray-drenched spectators were beginning 

 to realise that the French crew were decidedly in 

 jeopardy, the rocket apparatus arrived from Hartle- 

 pool. It had been brought nearly three miles in the 

 dark in about twenty-five minutes. The stand could 

 not be set up without difficulty owing to the pressure 

 of the crowd, for the beach was black with people. 



There was much excitement as the first rocket sped 

 out seaward on its message of hope. It missed, and a 

 wail of despair rose from the crowd. A second was 

 fired. It went fairly between her fore and main masts. 

 In the darkness following the glare of the rocket there 

 was some uncertainty as to whether the crew were 

 making shift to use the line. No response came from 

 the barque. Was it ignorance on the Frenchmen's 

 part, or were they battered into helplessness by the 

 waves, or paralysed by the icy showers that still 

 swept at intervals from over the sea ? These were some 

 of the questions that the anxious watchers on shore 

 asked one another in voices hoarse with misgiving. 

 Some men, indeed, wildly shouted to the Frenchmen 

 in English telling them what they had to do with 

 the rocket line, but they might as well have yelled 

 across to Norway for aught the shipwrecked sailors 

 could hear in the din of the gale. 



After an interval of a few minutes, during which 

 everybody on the beach seemed to be talking at once, a 

 third rocket was fired ; then a fourth. When the lurid 

 light of the last clearly revealed the Fran$ais, a 

 simultaneous cry of horror rose all along the shore, 

 for it was seen that she had fallen over on to her beam 

 ends, decks to seaward, and that the crew were clinging 

 to the sides, while the boiling breakers dashed over 



