down, over the
yawning chasm, on the chance of gripping the shrouds, and some of them
rolled over and actually and literally, as they were carried off their
feet, had to swim on the decks of the labouring vessel.

The captain of the vessel could not get on board in the same way, and
though they passed a line round his waist it was a good half-hour
before they could get him up the steep side.

The lifeboatmen say that when he did reach the deck he declared 'that
if that was what they called coming hoff in a lifeboat from Deal beach,
he wouldn't do it again--no, not for hall the money in the Bank of
England!'

The captain now hesitated to slip his ship, lest she might pay off on
the wrong tack and come ashore; but as the vessel was steadily drifting
and the sea terrific, the lifeboat being now and then hoisted up to her
foreyard, while mountainous seas wallowed over both the lifeboat and
the vessel, the Deal lifeboatmen said, 'If you don't slip her, we will.
There's death right astern for all of us if you delay.'

Then the captain himself took the helm, the rudder-head being twisted,
and the spirit and energy of the Deal men infused new life into the
wearied crew, and all hands worked together with a will.

They loosed the fore-topsail and they set the foretopmast staysail.
Tom Adams went or waded forwards, holding on carefully, with a lantern,
and he watched by the dim light till the fore-topmast staysail bellied
out with a flap like thunder on the right side, and then he shouted
down the wind, 'Hard up, captain! Hard a-port!' At the same instant
Roberts shouted, 'Slip the cable! Let go all!' And just within the
very jaws of the breakers, the ship's head payed away to the southward,
and she escaped--saved at the last minute, and safe to the open sea.

When safe away and running before the gale, the Deal men strapped the
rudder-head with ropes, straining them tight with a tackle, and then
wedged the ropes tighter and tighter still, making the rudder head
thoroughly safe.

And then, though only very poorly and miserably supplied with food--for
they only had dry biscuits till they reached port--they manned the
pumps with the worn-out crew, and brought the ship safe to Cowes.

But for the existence of a lifeboat at North Deal the ship would have
been wrecked that night on the stormy beach of Deal, and, in all
probability, her crew would also have perished.

It is pleasant to record the unselfish heroism of the