rce of the blow. The water-logged wreck was now
nearly submerged, or just awash, her bulwark-top-rail being now and
then exposed and covered again with the advance and recoil of each wave.

Aft there were a raised quarter-deck and a wheel-house, behind the
remains of which three of the boatmen took refuge, while the five
others climbed into the rigging, but over them even there the sea broke
in clouds.

As there was no tide and no wind, it was impossible to sheer the
lifeboat, and, whatever position was taken by anchoring, in that only
the lifeboat would ride after veering down before the sea. The
coxswains, therefore, had to try again and again before they got the
proper position to veer down from.

At last, however, they succeeded, and anchoring the lifeboat by the
stern, they veered down bows first towards the wreck into the midst of
this breezeless but awful sea--bows first, lest the rudder should be
injured.

The cable was passed round the bollard or powerful samson-post, and
then a turn was taken round a thwart; and the end was held by Roberts,
the second coxswain, with his face towards the stern, and his back to
the wreck, watching the billows as they charged in line, and easing his
cable or getting it in when the strain had passed.

The heavy rollers drove the lifeboat before them like a feather, and
end on towards the wreck, till her cable brought her up with a jerk.
The strain of these jerks was so great, that, even though Roberts eased
his cable, each wave seemed to all hands as if it would tear the after
air-box out of the lifeboat, or drag the lifeboat itself in two pieces.

They veered down to about five fathoms of the wreck; closer they dared
not go, lest a sea should by an extra strain dash their bows into the
wreck, when not one of all the company would have been saved, and the
lifeboat herself would have perhaps been broken up.

Then they saw their friends and comrades and heard them cry, 'Try to
save us if you can!' And the men said afterwards, 'We got in such a
flurry to save them, that what we did in a minute we thought took us an
hour.'

At last the cane and lead were thrown from the lifeboat by a stalwart
boatman standing in the bows. A heavier line was then drawn on board
by the light cane line, and the boatmen came down from the rigging,
and, having made themselves fast to pins and staunchions, sheltered
behind the bulwark and the wheel-house, seeing the approach of rescue.

Enoug