side the _Lark_,
higher up the river, the _Lark_ having passed her after she had broken
adrift from the _Asp_. In another minute she would have drifted among
the breakers, when the destruction of all on board would be sealed. To
pick her up under weigh was almost impossible; and, with the tide and
heavy sea, the schooner could not be steered with any degree of
certainty even near her; and could even this be done, the probabilities
were that she would be swamped before the men could be got out of her.
The young officer therefore saw that but one course only was open for
him to pursue with any chance of success, and that involved immense risk
both to the vessel and his people. To think is to act with a British
seaman in a case of emergency. He saw that to intercept the boat he
must anchor; and, having both anchors clear, and a hand by the weather
one all along, he ordered it to be let go, though he had but two fathoms
at the time under the vessel's keel, while the surf from the second bar
was curling up round the vessel's sides, threatening to make a clear
sweep of her decks. His order to let go was perhaps not understood, or
the Spanish crew, some thirty in number, seeing what was about to be
done, and expecting instant destruction in consequence, endeavoured to
impede it; at all events, he had to rush forward and cut the stoppers
with an axe, which he luckily had at hand.

The schooner brought up all standing, the sea at the same instant making
a terrific breach over her; but the helmsman was a good hand, and
sheered her over to the exact spot the pinnace must pass. The whole was
the work of a moment. The boat drifted near, a rope was hove into her,
and providentially caught by the nearly exhausted crew. She was hauled
alongside, her people being got out, while some fresh hands went down
into her and secured her with her own cable and the end of the
schooner's main-sheet. At the same time the schooner's fore-sheet was
passed into the cutter as a preventer. Four men were saved from the
pinnace. They stated that she and the gig had been towing astern of the
_Asp_, with two hands in each, when, on crossing the inner bar, they
both broke adrift together. Instead, however, of the two men in the
pinnace getting into the gig, which they might have managed, those in
the smaller got into the larger boat, fancying they would be safer, when
they found themselves totally unable to pull her against the tide, or to
guide