into the bay that failed to get
far enough to windward. Down on the rock behind the breakwater she
drove, helpless, and went to pieces. Another took the same road, and
smashed to atoms almost at the pierhead, so near, and yet so far from
human aid, that the voices of both crews could be heard by the helpless,
distracted spectators--white-lipped men, wailing women, who clustered
there by the rocks in impotent agony. One struggling drowning man fought
hard--it is said that the outermost of a chain of rescuers once even
touched his hand. But no help was possible, no human power could have
drawn those helpless men from that raging cauldron; against such wind no
rocket could fly, near these rocks no lifeboat could live. Even if she
could have lived, there was no crew to man her; all were away with the
fleet.

It was near low water now, and into the bay came driving a big boat that
rushed on the rocks at Fort Point, pounded there a brief second, and was
hurled by the following sea on to the beach, so nearly high and dry that
her crew, by the aid of lines, were readily saved. And then into view
through the welter came staggering a new boat, one whose first trip it
was, sore battered, but battling gallantly for life, and making
wonderful weather of it. Yet, even as hope told the flattering tale of
her certain safety, there came racing up astern a sea, gigantic even in
that giant sea, raced her, caught her, and, as it passed ahead, so
tilted her bows that the ballast slid aft, and down she sank by the
stern, so near to safety that betwixt ship and shore wife might
recognise husband and husband wife.

As at Eyemouth, so it was all down the coast. At Burnmouth, at Berwick
(though no boat belonging to Berwick that day was out), at Goswick Bay,
and elsewhere, boat after boat, driven before the fury of the gale, was
forced over by wind and sea, and sunk with all her crew, or was dashed
to pieces on the shore.

Night fell on Eyemouth; and, God, what a night! "In Rama was there a
voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel
weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are
not."

By little and little, by ones and twos, boats, battered and with sails
torn to ribbons, with crews exhausted and distraught, kept arriving
during the Saturday and Sunday, bringing men, as it were, back from the
dead. One or two, under bare poles, had ridden the gale out at sea,
lying up into the wind as near as mi