Battles with the Sea | Page 8

fearless men; they had solved it many a time, before that night. When more than a hundred yards to windward of the wreck, the boat's foresail was lowered and her anchor let go. Then they seized the oars, and the cable was payed out; but the distance had been miscalculated. They were twenty yards or so short of the wreck when the cable had run completely out, so the men had to pull slowly and laboriously back to their anchor again, while the emigrants sent up a cry of despair, supposing they had failed and were going to forsake them! At length the anchor was got up. In a few minutes it was let go in a better position, and the boat was carefully veered down under the lee of the vessel, from both bow and stern of which a hawser was thrown to it and made fast. By means of these ropes and the cable the boat was kept somewhat in position without striking the wreck.
It was no easy matter to make the voice heard in such a gale and turmoil of seas, but the captain of the Fusilier managed to give his ship's name and intended destination. Then he shouted, "How many can you carry? We have more than a hundred souls on board; more than sixty of them women and children."
This might well fill the breasts of the rescuers with anxiety. Their boat, when packed full, could only carry about thirty. However, a cheering reply was returned, and, seizing a favourable opportunity, two of the boatmen sprang on the wreck, clambered over the side, and leaped among the excited emigrants. Some seized them by the hands and hailed them as deliverers; others, half dead with terror, clung to them as if afraid they might forsake them. There was no time, however, to humour feelings. Shaking them all off--kindly but forcibly--the men went to work with a will, briefly explained that there was a steamer not far off, and began to get the women first into the boat.
Terror-stricken, half fainting, trembling in every limb, deadly pale, and exhausted by prolonged anxiety and exposure, the poor creatures were carried rather than led to the ship's side. It needed courage even to submit to be saved on such a night and in such circumstances. Two sailors stood outside the ship's bulwarks, fastened there by ropes, ready to lower the women. At one moment the raging sea rose with a roar almost to the feet of these men, bearing the kicking lifeboat on its crest. Next moment the billow had passed, and the men looked down into a yawning abyss of foam, with the boat surging away far out of their reach, plunging and tugging at the ropes which held it, as a wild horse of the plains might struggle with the lasso. No wonder that the women gazed appalled at the prospect of such a leap, or that some shrieked and wildly resisted the kind violence of their rescuers. But the leap was for life; it had to be taken--and quickly, too, for the storm was very fierce, and there were many to save!
One of the women is held firmly by the two men. With wildly-staring eyes she sees the boat sweep towards her on the breast of a rushing sea. It comes closer. Some of the men below stand up with outstretched arms. The woman makes a half spring, but hesitates. The momentary action proves almost fatal. In an instant the boat sinks into a gulf, sweeps away as far as the ropes will let her, and is buried in foam, while the woman is slipping from the grasp of the men who hold her.
"Don't let her go! don't let her go!" is roared by the lifeboat-men, but she has struggled out of their grasp. Another instant and she is gone; but God in His mercy sends the boat in again at that instant; the men catch her as she falls, and drag her inboard.
Thus, one by one, were the women got into the lifeboat. Some of these women were old and infirm; some were invalids. Who can conceive the horror of the situation to such as these, save those who went through it?
The children were wrapped up in blankets and thus handed down. Some of the husbands or fathers on board rolled up shawls and blankets and tossed them down to the partially clothed and trembling women. It chanced that one small infant was bundled up in a blanket by a frantic passenger and handed over the side. The man who received it, mistaking it for merely a blanket, cried, "Here, Bill, catch!" and tossed it into the boat. Bill, with difficulty, caught it as it was flying overboard; at the same moment a woman cried, "My child!