The Lifeboat - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best short books to read TXT) 📗

ahead, not two cables' lengths," roared Davis.

The sails of the lifeboat had already been lowered, and the oars were out in a second. Gradually and slowly they dropped down towards the breakers, and soon caught sight of the mast of the "Nancy," still towering up in the midst of the angry waters.

The danger to the lifeboat was now very great, for there was such a wild chopping sea on the sands that it ran great risk of being upset. The boat was one of the old-fashioned stamp, which, although incapable of being sunk, was not secure against being overturned, and it did not possess that power of righting itself which characterises the lifeboats of the present day.

In a few minutes they were near enough to see the mast of the "Nancy" dimly in the dark. The coxswain immediately gave the order to let go the anchor and veer down towards the wreck. Just as he did so, a terrific sea came rolling towards them like a black mountain.

"Look out, men!" he shouted.

Every man let go his oar, and, throwing himself on the thwart, embraced it with all his might. The wave went right over them, sweeping the boat from stem to stern; but as it had met the sea stern-on it was not overturned. It was completely filled however, and some time was necessarily lost in freeing it of water. The oars, being attached to the sides of the boat by lanyards, were not carried away.

In a few minutes they had veered down under the lee of the wreck.

The crew and passengers of the "Nancy" were still clinging to the cross-trees, benumbed and almost unable to speak or move when the lifeboat approached. With the exception of Bax and Bluenose, they were all so thoroughly exhausted as to have become comparatively indifferent to, and therefore ignorant of, all that was going on around them. All their energies were required to enable them simply to retain their position on the rigging. At first the sight of the rockets from the light-ship, and her lanterns gleaming in the far distance, had aroused feelings of hope, but as hour after hour passed away the most of the unhappy people fell into a sort of stupor or indifference, and the lights were no longer regarded with hopeful looks.

When the lugger came towards them and anchored outside the Sands, it was so dark that none but sharp eyes could make her out through the blinding spray. Bax and Bluenose descried her, but both of them were so well aware of the impossibility of a large boat venturing among the shoals and breakers that they tacitly resolved not to acquaint their comrades with its presence, lest they should raise false hopes, which, when disappointed, might plunge them into still deeper despair.

Very different, however, were the feelings with which they beheld the approach of the lifeboat, which the practised eye of Bax discerned long before she came alongside.

"The lifeboat!" said Bax sharply in the ear of Bluenose, who was close beside him. "Look! am I right?"

"So 'tis, I _do_ believe," cried the captain, staring intently in the direction indicated by his friend's outstretched hand.

"Lifeboat ahoy!" shouted Bax, in a voice that rang loud and strong above the whistling winds, like the blast of a brazen trumpet.

"Wreck ahoy!" cried the coxswain of the boat, and the cry, borne towards them by the gale, fell upon the ears of those on the mast like the voice of Hope shouting "Victory!" over the demon Despair.

"Cheer up, Lucy! Ho! comrades, look alive, here comes the lifeboat!"

Bax accompanied these words with active preparations for heaving a rope and otherwise facilitating their anticipated escape. Guy was the first to respond to the cry. Having placed himself in a very exposed position in order that his person might shelter Lucy Burton, he had been benumbed more thoroughly than his comrades, but his blood was young, and it only wanted the call to action to restore him to the full use of his powers and faculties. Not so with the missionary. He had become almost insensible, and, but for the effort to protect his child which animated and sustained him, must certainly have fallen into the sea. Some of the men, too, were utterly helpless. Their stiffened hands, indeed, maintained a death-like gripe of the ropes, but otherwise they were quite incapable of helping themselves.

As for Lucy, she had been so well cared for and protected from the bitter fury of the wind, that, although much exhausted, terrified, and shaken, she was neither so be-numbed nor so helpless as some of her less fortunate companions.

Presently the lifeboat was close on the lee side of the mast, and a cheer burst from her crew when they saw the number of survivors on the cross-trees.

"Look out!" cried the man in the bow of the boat, as he swung a heavily-loaded stick round his head, and flung it over the mast. The light line attached to this was caught by Bax, and by means of it a stout rope was drawn from the boat to the mast of the "Nancy" and made fast.

And now came the most dangerous and difficult part of the service. Besides the danger of the mast being broken by the violence of the increasing storm and hurled upon the lifeboat, an event which would have insured its destruction, there was the risk of the boat herself being stove against the mast by the lashing waves which spun her on their white crests or engulfed her in their black hollows, as if she had been a cork. The greatest care was therefore requisite in approaching the wreck, and when this was accomplished there still remained the difficulty of getting the exhausted crew into the boat.

Had they all been young and strong like Bax or Guy, they could have slid down the rope at the risk of nothing worse than a few bruises; but with several of them this method of escape was impossible;--with Lucy and her father it was, in any circumstances, out of the question. A block and tackle was therefore quickly rigged up by Bluenose, by which they were lowered.

Poor Lucy had not the courage to make the attempt until one or two of the seamen had preceded her, it seemed so appalling to be swung off the mast into the black raging chaos beneath her feet, where the lifeboat, shrouded partially in darkness and covered with driving spray, appeared to her more like a phantom than a reality.

"Come, Miss Lucy," said Bax, tenderly, "I'll fasten the rope round myself and be swung down with you in my arms."

Lucy would not hear of this. "No," said she, firmly, "I will conquer my silly fears; here, put the rope round me."

At that moment a wave tossed the boat so high that it came up almost to the level of the mast-head, and an involuntary cry rose from some of the men, who thought she must infallibly be dashed against it and upset. One of the men on the mast, seeing the boat at his very feet, made a sudden spring towards it, but it plunged into the hollow of the passing wave, and, missing his grasp, he fell with a wild shriek into the water. He was swept away instantly. This so unnerved Lucy that she almost fainted in her father's arms.

"Come," cried Bax, putting the end of the rope round his waist, "we must not trifle thus."

"The rope won't bear ye both," said Bluenose. "You're too heavy, lad."

"True," interrupted Guy, "let me do it. I'm light, and strong enough."

Bax, at once admitting the force of the argument, undid the rope without hesitation, and fastened it quickly round Guy's waist. The latter seized Lucy in his arms, and in a moment they were both swinging in the air over the wild sea.

Every incident in this thrilling scene now passed with the speed almost of thought. The boat rose under them. Bax at once let the rope run. Down they went, but a swirl in the treacherous waves swept the boat two or three fathoms to leeward. Instantly they were both in the sea, but Guy did not loosen his hold or lose his presence of mind for a moment. Bax hauled on the rope and raised him half out of the water for a few seconds; the boat made a wild sheer towards them, and the missionary uttered a cry of agony as he fancied his child was about to be run down, perhaps killed, before his eyes; but the cry was transformed into a shout of joy and thanksgiving when he saw one of the lifeboat's crew seize Guy by the hair, and another catch his daughter by a portion of her dress. They were quickly pulled into the boat.

To save the remainder was now a matter of less difficulty. The missionary was the only one left on the mast who was not able more or less to take care of himself; but the joy consequent on seeing his daughter saved infused new vigour into his frame. He and the others were finally got off--Bax being the last to quit the wreck--and then the lifeboat pulled away from the dangerous shoals and made for the land.

Finding it impossible to reach Broadstairs, owing to the direction of the gale, they pulled in an oblique direction, and, after narrowly escaping an upset more than once, gained Deal beach not far from Sandown Castle, where the boat was run ashore.

Here there was a large concourse of boatmen and others awaiting them. The men in the lugger,--seeing the lifeboat come up and feeling that the storm was almost too much for them, and that their services were not now required,--had returned to the shore and spread the news.

The instant the lifeboat touched the shingle, a huge block and tackle were hooked on to her, the capstan connected with these was already manned, and the boat was run up high and dry with the crew in her.

The cheers and congratulations that followed were checked however, when the discovery was made that Guy Foster was lying in a state of insensibility!

When the boat sheered towards him and Lucy, as already described, he had seen the danger and warded it away from the girl by turning his own person towards it. No one knew that he had been hurt. Indeed, he himself had scarcely felt the blow, but a deep cut had been made in his head, which bled so copiously that he had lain down and gradually became insensible.

His head was bandaged by Bluenose in a rough and ready fashion; a couple of oars with a sail rolled round them were quickly procured, and on this he was borne off the beach, followed by his friends and a crowd of sympathisers.

"Where to?" inquired one of the men who supported the litter.

"To Sandhill Cottage," said Bax; "it's his mother's house, and about as near as any other place. Step out, lads!"

Before they were off the beach the dull report of a cannon-shot was heard. It came from the light-ship, and immediately after a rocket flew up, indicating by the direction in which it sloped that another vessel was in distress on the shoals.

All thought of those who had just been rescued was forgotten