p must have run foul of her, and they had
escaped on board of it. All hands were again called, the tiller was
cast loose, a wide sheer given to the Gull, and the brig went past them
at about the distance of a ship-length. She went slowly by, owing, it
was afterwards ascertained, to the fact that she had ninety fathoms of
cable trailing from her bows. She was laden with coal, and when the
Deal boatmen picked her up next day, they found the leg of a man on her
deck, terribly mutilated, as if it had got jambed somehow, and been
wrenched off! But no one ever appeared to tell the fate of that
vessel's crew.

Shortly before ten, two tar-barrels were observed burning in a
north-easterly direction. These proved to be the signals of distress
from a ship and a barque, which were dragging their anchors. They
gradually drove down on the north part of the sands; the barque struck
on a part named the Goodwin Knoll, the ship went on the North sandhead.

Now the time for action had come. The Goodwin light-vessel, being
nearest to the wrecks, fired a signal-gun and sent up a rocket.

"There goes the _Goodwin_!" cried the mate; "load the starboard gun,
Jack."

He ran down himself for a rocket as he spoke, and Jerry ran to the cabin
for the red-hot poker, which had been heating for some time past in
readiness for such an event.

"A gun and a flare to the south-east'ard, sir, close to us," shouted
Shales, who had just finished loading, as the mate returned with the
rocket and fixed it in position.

"Where away, Jack?" asked the mate hastily, for it now became his duty
to send the rocket in the direction of the new signals, so as to point
out the position of the wreck to the lifeboat-men on shore.

"Due south-east, sir; there they go again," said Jack, "not so close as
I thought. South sandhead vessel signalling now, sir."

There was no further need for questions. The flash of the gun was
distinctly seen, though the sound was not heard, owing to the howling of
the hurricane, and the bright flare of a second tar-barrel told its own
tale, while a gun and rocket from the floating light at the South
sandhead showed that the vessel in distress had been observed by her.

"Fire!" cried the mate.

Jerry applied the poker to the gun, and the scene which we have
described in a former chapter was re-enacted;--the blinding flash, the
roar, and the curved line of light across the black sky; but there was
no occasion that night to re