cided, in
his mind, to get his crew from the Mandalay on board, and then rush
through the breakers to the doomed vessel, and having rescued her crew,
to return with the help of one of the tug-boats to the Mandalay; but,
fortunately, this catastrophe was averted by the humane and generous
action of the captain of the tug-boat Bantam Cock, who went at full
speed within hail, and warned the unsuspecting vessel of the terrible
danger so near her.

We can almost fancy we hear the hoarse shouts from the tug-boat of
'Breakers ahead!' 'Goodwins under your lee!' and then the rattling and
the thunderous noise of the sails, and the creaking of the yards and
braces, as the vessel swings round on the other tack into safety.

The Mandalay was then towed out of the swatchway by the Cambria into
deep water, and round the Goodwin Sands, with the lifeboat alongside
her, into the anchorage of the Downs by the half-divided hawser. Had
the axe's edge been keener, or had a few more blows been struck, or a
few more strands severed, or had the masts of the vessel crashed into
the lifeboat, or the lifeboat been capsized by the hawser's mighty
jerks, how different a tale would have been told!

But it is our happy privilege to record the successful issue of
thirty-five hours' struggle against the terrors of a winter's gale on
the Goodwin Sands, and of doing some small justice to the seamanlike
skill and daring of the Deal coxswains and lifeboatmen, and of all
engaged in the task.

It will be seen from the case recorded in this chapter that the motives
which were apparent in the minds of the brave fellows who manned the
lifeboat on each occasion were those of humanity and generous ardour to
succour the distressed; the salvage of property was an afterthought.
They started from the beach to put their intimate local knowledge of
the Goodwins, their skill, their strength, nay, their lives, at the
service of seamen in distress; but when they saw that their energies,
and theirs alone, could save a valuable vessel and her cargo, and that
they could earn such fair recompense as the law allowed, this salvage
of property became a duty, in the discharge of which, had any man lost
his life he would have lost it nobly, having entered upon his perilous
task in the unselfish and sublimer spirit of rescuing 'some forlorn and
shipwrecked brother' from death on the Goodwin Sands.

CHAPTER XI

THE LEDA

Swift on the shore, a hardy few
The Lifeb