h of the slack of the weightier line was kept on board the
wreck--the end being there made fast--to permit the middle of the rope
being fastened round a man and of his being dragged away from the wreck
through the sea into the lifeboat. A clove-hitch was put by George
Marsh over the shoulders of the first man, who watched his chance for
'a smooth,' jumped into the waves, and, after a long struggle--for the
line fouled--was hauled safe into the lifeboat. Marsh on the wreck saw
after this that the line was clear, and that no kink or knot stopped
its running freely.

Reading these lines in our quiet homes, and in a comfortable arm-chair
by the fireside, it is hard to realise the position of those eight
boatmen. They were drenched and buried in each wallowing sea, which
strove to tear them from the pin to which each man was belayed by the
line round his waist; and their ears were stunned with the bellow of
each bursting wave. But, on the other hand, their eyes beheld the
grand and cheering spectacle of their brethren in the lifeboat
struggling manfully with death for their sakes, and they heard their
undaunted shouts.

If for a moment they cast off or lengthened their lifelines, they were
washed all over the slippery deck; and brave George Marsh, who was
specially active, was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, having been
dashed against a corner of the wheel-house.

The wheel-house up to this time had afforded some shelter to the men
who ventured on the deck of the wreck, lashed as just explained, of
course, to some pin or bollard; and even they had now and then to rush
up the rigging when a weighter [Transcriber's note: weightier?] wave
was seen coming. But just at this time a great mass of water advanced
and wallowed clean over the wreck, carrying the wheelhouse away with
it, and bursting, where it struck the masts and booms, into a cloud: it
was too solid to burst much, but it just 'wallowed' over the wreck.

Successive seas are, of course, unlike in height, volume, and
demeanour. One comes on board and falls with a solid, heavy lop--there
may be twenty tons of blue water in it--the next rushes along with wild
speed and fury.

Roberts in the lifeboat now saw a great roller of the latter
description advancing; ready to ease his cable, he cried, 'Look out!
Look out! Hold on, my lads!'

But before Wilds, the coxswain, who was not a young man, could turn
round and grasp a thwart, the sea was on him, and drove