the beach, and before you can get free of her, you may be carried away
by the reflux."

The Frenchmen and blacks, eager to save themselves, paid no attention to
what he said. On flew the boat on the summit of a sea, and carried
forward, the next instant her keel struck the sand. Regardless of his
advice, they all at the same moment sprang forward, each man trying to
be the first to get out of the boat. He and Tom Fletcher held on to the
thwarts.

On came the sea. Before the men had got out of its influence, two of
them were carried off their legs, and swept back by the boiling surf,
while the boat, broaching to, was hove high up on the beach, on which
she fell with a loud crash, her side stove in. Rayner, fearing that she
might be carried off, leaped out on the beach, Tom scrambling after him.
His first thought was to try and rescue the two men who had been
carried off by the receding wave. Looking round to see who was missing,
he discovered that one of them was a British seaman, the other a
Frenchman. He sprang back to the boat to secure a coil of rope which
had been thrown into her, and calling on his companions to hold on to
one end, he fastened the other round his waist, intending to plunge in,
and hoping to seize hold of the poor fellows, who could be seen
struggling frantically in the hissing foam. The Frenchmen and blacks,
however, terror-stricken, and thinking only of their own safety, rushed
up the beach, as if fancying that the sea might still overtake them.
Tom and his messmate alone remained, and held on to the rope. Rayner
swam off towards the Frenchman, who was nearest to the shore. Grasping
him by the shirt, he ordered Tom and Brown to haul him in, and in a few
seconds they succeeded in getting the Frenchman on shore.

Ward, the other seaman, could still be seen floating, apparently
lifeless, in the surf--now driven nearer the beach, now carried off
again, far beyond the reach of the rope. The moment the Frenchman had
been deposited on the sands, Rayner sprang back again, telling Tom and
Brown to advance as far as possible into the water.

Rayner, however, did not feel very confident that they would obey his
orders, but trusted to his powers as a swimmer to make his way back to
the beach. A sea rolled in. He swam on bravely, surmounting its
foaming crest. He had got to the end of the rope, and Ward was still
beyond his reach. Still he struggled. Perhaps another sea might bring
the man