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! my child!” sprang forward, snatched the bundle from the horrified Bill, and hugged it to her bosom!

At last the boat, being sufficiently filled, was hauled up to her anchor. Sail was hoisted, and away they flew into the surging darkness, leaving the rest of the emigrants still filled with terrible anxiety, but not now with hopeless despair.

The lifeboat and her tender work admirably together. Knowing exactly what must be going on, and what would be required of him, though he could see nothing, the captain of the Aid, after the boat had slipped from him, had run down along the sands to leeward of the wreck, and there waited. Presently he saw the boat coming like a phantom out of the gloom. It was quickly alongside, and the rescued people—twenty-five women and children—were transferred to the steamer, taken down to her cabin, and tenderly cared for. Making this transfer in such a sea was itself difficult in the extreme, and accompanied with great danger, but difficulty and danger were the rule that night, not the exception. All went well. The Aid, with the warrior-boat in tow, steamed back to windward of the wreck; then the lifeboat slipped the cable as before, and returned to the conflict, leaping over the seething billows to the field of battle like a warhorse refreshed.

The stirring scene was repeated with success. Forty women and children were rescued on the second trip, and put on board the steamer. Leaden daylight now began to dawn. Many hours had the “storm warriors” been engaged in the wild exhausting fight, nevertheless a third and a fourth time did they charge the foe, and each time with the same result. All the passengers were finally rescued and put on board the steamer.

But now arose a difficulty. The tide had been falling and leaving the wreck, so that the captain and crew determined to stick to her in the hope of getting her off, if the gale should abate before the tide rose again.

It was therefore agreed that the lifeboat should remain by her in case of accidents; so the exhausted men had to prepare for a weary wait in their wildly plunging boat, while the Aid went off with her rescued people to Ramsgate.

But the adventures of that night were not yet over. The tug had not been gone above an hour and a half, when, to the surprise of those in the lifeboat, she was seen returning, with her flag flying half mast high, a signal of recall to her boat. The lifeboat slipped from the side of the wreck and ran to meet her. The reason was soon explained. On his way back to Ramsgate the captain had discovered another large vessel on her beam-ends, a complete wreck, on that part of the sands named the Shingles. It was the Demerara, and her crew were still seen clinging to the quivering mast on which they had spent the livelong night.

More work for the well-nigh worn out heroes! Away they went to the rescue as though they had been a fresh crew. Dashing through the surf they drew near the doomed ship, which creaked and groaned when struck by the tremendous seas, and threatened to go to pieces every moment. The sixteen men on the mast were drenched by every sea. Several times that awful night they had, as it were, been mocked by false hopes of deliverance. They had seen the flashing of the rockets and faintly heard the thunder of the alarm-guns fired by the lightships. They had seen the lights of the steamer while she searched in vain for them on first reaching the sands, had observed the smaller light of the boat in tow, whose crew would have been so glad to save them, and had shouted in vain to them as they passed by on their errand of mercy to other parts of the sands, leaving them a prey to darkness and despair. But a merciful and loving God had seen and heard them all the time, and now sent them aid at the eleventh hour.

When the lifeboat at last made in towards them the ebb tide was running strongly, and, from the position of the wreck, it was impossible to anchor to windward and drop down to leeward in the usual fashion. They had, therefore, to adopt the dangerous plan of running with the wind, right