's mainyard, and
thundering so loudly that, though we were to windward, we could hear it
above the gale and the boiling of the seas around us. It might have
shook even a man who wanted to die to look at it, if he didn't know
what the Bradford can go through.

'I ran my eye over the men's faces. "Let slip the tow rope," bawled
Dick Goldsmith. "Up foresail," I shouted, and two minutes after we had
sighted that mast we were dead before the wind, our storm foresail taut
as a drum-skin, our boat's stem heading full for the broken seas and
the lonely stranded vessel in the midst of them. It was well that
there was something in front of us to keep our eyes that way, and that
none of us thought of looking astern, or the sight of the high and
frightful seas which raged after us might have played old Harry with
weak nerves. Some of them came with such force that they leapt right
over the boat, and the air was dark with water flying a dozen yards
high over us in broad solid sheets, which fell with a roar like the
explosion of a gun ten or a dozen fathoms ahead. But we took no notice
of these seas, even when we were in the thick of the broken waters, and
all the hands holding on to the thwarts for dear life. Every thought
was upon the mast that was growing bigger and clearer, and sometimes
when a sea hove us high we could just see the hull, with the water as
white as milk flying over it. The mast was what they call 'bright,'
that is, scraped and varnished, and we knew that if there was anything
living aboard that doomed ship we should find it on that mast; and we
strained our eyes with all our might, but could see nothing that looked
like a man. But on a sudden I caught sight of a length of canvas
streaming out of the top, and all of us seeing it we raised a shout,
and a few minutes after we saw the men. They were all dressed in
yellow oilskins, and the mast being of that colour was the reason why
we did not see them sooner. They looked a whole mob of people, and one
of us roared out, "All hands are there, men!" and I answered, "Aye, the
whole ship's company, and we'll have them all!" for though, as we
afterwards knew, there were only eleven of them, yet, as I have said,
they looked a great number huddled together in that top, and I made
sure the whole ship's company were there.

'By this time we were pretty close to the ship, and a fearful wreck she
looked, with her mainmast and mizzenmast gone, and her bulwarks washed