them.'

'And that,' said the captain, 'was the anchor that held my ship that
awful night.'

It is hard to doubt that He who once stilled the tempest, and granted
to this humble sailor the mighty gift of Faith, on that stormy night
'delivered His servant that trusted in Him.'

The Edina went on her way to Pernambuco.

CHAPTER VI

THE FREDRIK CARL

There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.

On October 30, 1885, the small Danish schooner, the Fredrik Carl, ran
aground on the Goodwin Sands. She struck on the outer part of the
North Sand Head, about eight miles from the nearest land, and two miles
from the well-known Whistle Buoy, which ever and always sends forth its
mournful note of warning--too often unavailing.

Summoned by the lightship's guns and rockets to the rescue--for the red
three-masted North Sand Head lightship was only two miles from the
wreck--the Ramsgate lifeboat, towed by the steam-tug Aid, came to the
spot, and, after a long trial, failed to get the schooner afloat, and,
having taken her crew out of her, returned to the shore.

At low water the next day, October 31, the vessel lay high and dry on
the Goodwin Sands. She was tolerably upright, having bedded herself
slightly in the sand, and all her sails were swinging loose as the wind
chose to sway them. There was no rent in her side that could be seen,
and to all appearance she was safe and sound--only she was stranded on
the Goodwins, from which _vestigia nulla retrorsum_. As in the Cave of
Cacus, once there, you are there for ever, and few are the cases in
which vessels fast aground on the Goodwins ever again get away from the
great ship-swallower.

[Illustration: The anchor of death. From a photograph by W. H.
Franklin.]

The schooner had a cargo of oats, and if she could be got off would be
a very valuable prize to her salvors. But 'if'--and we all know that
'there's much virtue in your "if".'

However, when morning broke on October 31, many of the Deal boatmen,
whose keen eyes saw a possibility of a 'hovel,' came in their powerful
'galley punts' to see about this 'if,' and try if they could not
convert it into a reality. Accordingly, two of the Deal boats, taking
different directions, the Wanderer and the Gipsy King, approached the
Goodwin Sands near the north-west buoy.

On this day there was just enough sea curling and tumbling on the edge
of the sands to make landing on them difficult even for the skilled
D