reen sea, so far above their heads
that it seemed as they gazed into its terrible transparency that the
very sky had become green, and it broke into the lifeboat, hoisting her
up to the vessel's foreyard, and then plunging her bodily down and down.

In this mighty hoist the port bilge-piece of the lifeboat as she
descended struck the top rail of the vessel's bulwarks, and the
collision stove in her fore air-box. That she was not turned clean
over by the shock, throwing out of her, and then falling on, her crew,
was only by God's mercy. All attempts to help the seamen on the wreck
in distress were suspended and buried in the wave. The lifeboatmen
held on with both arms round the thwarts in deadly wrestle and
breathless for dear life. Looking forwards as the boat emerged, the
coxswains, standing aft on their raised platform, could only see
boiling foam. Looking aft as the noble lifeboat emptied herself, the
crew saw the two coxswains waist deep in froth, and the head of the
Norman post aft was invisible and under water. We were all 'knocked
silly by that sea,' said the men, and they found that two of their
number had been swept aft and forced under the thwarts or seats of the
lifeboat.

And now they turned to again--no one being missing--alone in that wild
cauldron of waters, with undaunted courage, to the work of rescue. Two
lines leading from the ship to the lifeboat were rigged up, the ends of
those lines being held by one of the lifeboatmen, George Philpot, who
had to tighten and slack them as the lifeboat rose, or when a sea came.
Spread-eagled on this rough ladder or cat's cradle, holding on for
their lives, the German crew had to come, and Philpot, who held the
lines in the lifeboat--no easy task--was lashed to the lifeboat's mast,
to leave his hands free and prevent his being swept overboard himself.
A space of about thirty feet separated the wreck and the lifeboat, as
the latter's head had to get a hard sheer off from the ship, to
counterbalance the tide and sea sucking and driving her towards the
wreck, and over this dangerous chasm the German sailors came.

Still the giant seas swept into the lifeboat, and again and again the
lifeboat freed herself from the water, and floated buoyant, in spite of
the damage done to her airbox, so great was her reserve of floating
power. This her crew knew, and preserved unbounded confidence in the
noble structure under their feet, especially as they heard the clicks