Terrible was the gale which burst that night upon the shores of old England, and awful the fate that awaited many of the vessels which were nearing port at the time. Better far for many of them had they met the foe in the open field of what seamen term blue water, for no place is so dangerous as the shallow waters off the coast when the storm-fiend is abroad.
Perhaps it may be news to some readers that the losses of this country by shipwreck form a perennial drain of life and wealth as regular and certain as the recurrence of the seasons. Nearly two thousand ships, two millions sterling, and little short of a thousand lives are lost each year on the shores of the United Kingdom—sometimes more, sometimes less,—each and every year. We give round numbers, because they are more easily remembered.
On the particular night of which we write, many a gallant ship was driving over the sea, making for her port, nearing home and friends, rushing to her doom! Passengers and crews alike had by that time, doubtless, become so familiar with whistling gales and heaving seas, that they had ceased to fear them; but some among them had yet to learn, when too late, that the dangers of the deep are insignificant compared with the perils of the shore.
Among these hapless ships was one to which we direct the reader’s particular attention. She was a large ship, with a crew of between twenty and thirty men, bound from China to the Thames. She carried no passengers, and was commanded by our friend, Captain Millet.
No captain in the mercantile navy of Britain was better qualified than he to take his ship across the trackless main, and, if need be, carry her safely into port; but seamanship and knowledge of channels and bars and currents avail nothing when the sails and cordage of a ship are unseaworthy and her timbers worn out.
The owners of the North Star cared little for human lives. They were economists of the strictest kind. Hence her condition was bad.
The gale overtook the North Star when she was not far from the coast where nestled her captain’s native town of Cranby. A pilot had been signalled for in vain, for the night was thick as well as stormy. At last one was obtained, and all went fairly well until the vessel was off the black rocks on which the eyes of Jeff Benson had been resting for some time. Fearing that he was too near that point of danger, the pilot gave orders to go about. While the vessel was in stays, one of the ropes parted, and she missed. At the same moment a squall came down on her, and carried away the main and fore-topmasts with the jib-boom. Instantly the vessel was unmanageable, and drifted bodily towards the rocks.
Captain Millet and his men toiled like heroes to clear away the wreckage, and orders were given to fire the signal-gun. As we have seen, our coastguardsman was swift to carry the alarm to his station, and without delay the lifeboat was launched. At the same time orders were given to get ready the coastguard boat, in case its services should be required.
The regular crew of the lifeboat had, as usual, been on the alert, and the bright blue boat of mercy was at once run down to the beach, until her carriage reached the edge of the foaming sea.
“Now, lads, jump in!” shouted the coxswain.
It was found, however, when they had taken their places and seized the oars, that two of the crew were missing. Volunteers were instantly called for, and Jeff, with his friend David Bowers, answered to the call. They put on the cork life-belts, took the vacant seats, and grasped the oars. Then the transporting carriage, with the boat and crew on it, was pushed by many willing hands as far into the sea as possible, the men bending forward with the oars out, ready to pull at a moment’s notice.
The launching ropes were already manned. At another signal from the coxswain, the boat plunged into the boiling surf, the oars were dipped, ten strong backs were bent, and away they shot on their errand of mercy—drenched and filled by the first great billow through which they cut their way, but not swamped, for the water ran out through the discharging tubes as fast as it came in.
An hour of hard toil brought them within sight of the wreck. Keeping well to windward, the coxswain cast anchor, and the bowman, taking a turn or two of the cable round the bollard, allowed the boat to drop down to the wreck, stern foremost.
“Can’t you get round to leeward of the wreck?” asked Jeff, who sat near the stern of the boat, keeping a firm grasp of his oar, which the rushing and breaking seas well-nigh forced out of his hands.
“No, not as the rocks lie,” replied the coxswain curtly.
On drawing a few yards nearer, it became evident that no boat could live in the seething caldron of rocks and foam that lay under the lee of the wreck. Their only chance lay in approaching from the weather side, which was not only a difficult and dangerous operation, but was rendered doubly so by the violent swaying of the wreck from side to side.
The roaring of the gale and thunder of the seas, combined with the darkness and the hurtling spray, rendered it impossible for the men in the life-boat to distinguish anything clearly, until close to the wreck. Then it was seen that the whole crew had taken to the rigging of the mainmast—the topmast of which had been carried away by the fall of the foremast and mizzen.
A lusty cheer told that the shipwrecked men were still strong in hope, though their situation was terrible; for every lurch of the hull shook the swaying top so violently as almost to tear even the strong seamen from their grasp.
“Jeff,” said Bowers, who sat on the same thwart with his friend, “did ye not recognise a voice in that cheer?”
“Ay, that I did,” returned Jeff, with feelings of great anxiety. “’Twas uncommon like Captain Millet.”
“Look out for the rope!” roared one of the lifeboat men, as he swung and discharged the loaded stick with a line attached.
The heave was successful. The men on the maintop of the wreck caught the line, and by means of it passed a stout warp between the mast and the boat, down which they began to shin like squirrels, for the prompt appearance of their rescuers had not left time for the exhaustion of their strength.
“Is your vessel the North Star, commanded by Captain Millet?” shouted Jeff in the ear of the first arrival, for the noise of raging elements rendered ordinary tones almost useless.
“Ay, she is,” replied the man; “but you won’t see him till the last of us is safe aboard.”
“Hallo! Captain Millet!” cried Jeff, with a roar that almost equalled the elements.
“Ay, ay, is that you, Jeff?” came back in a similar roar (but greatly softened by distance) from the swirling spray-clouds that raged above the wreck.
“Cheer up, Captain; we’ll save you all right,” returned our coastguardsman in another enthusiastic roar, which of itself did something to cheer up all who heard it.
About a dozen of the sailors had been got into the lifeboat, when a tremendous rending sound was heard, followed by a loud cry of alarm, as the mast broke off a few feet above the deck, and plunged, with the men still upon it, into the boiling sea. To add to the confusion and terror, some part of the cordage caught the lifeboat, and completely sank as well as overturned it.
To an ignorant observer it might have seemed that all hope was gone—that every man must perish. But this was not so. The buoyant qualities of the magnificent lifeboat brought it to the surface like a cork the instant it was freed. Its self-righting qualities turned it on its keel. The self-acting discharging tubes emptied it in less than two minutes; and the crew, supported by their cork life-belts, caught the life-lines festooned round the boat’s side for this very purpose, and clambered into her.
Of the men of the wreck who had been tumbled into the sea along with them, some clung to their rescuers, whose belts could easily sustain two. Others were able to lay hold of the boat, and a few held on to the floating wreckage till they were saved.
Suddenly the voice of Captain Millet was heard, “Hold on, lads; don’t go without me. My foot’s jammed here, and I can’t—”
He stopped abruptly, for the head of the mast plunged under water at the moment, taking the captain along with it.
Without a word Jeff rose and sprang into the sea at the spot where his friend had disappeared. Almost at the same moment the end of the mast re-appeared, and struck our hero on the side with terrible violence. In spite of the blow, however, he was able to free the captain, who was caught by several strong arms, and hauled inboard at the same moment that his rescuer laid hold of one of the hanging life-lines.
While they were still heaving at the captain, David Bowers heard Jeff’s voice—
“Your hand, Davy!”
The stout coastguardsman was not slow to obey and he received a grip like that of a drowning man; but his mate made no other effort to save himself.
“Help here, two of you,” cried Bowers.
Another moment, and six brawny arms embraced Jeff, and lifted him into the boat.
“Not hurt, I hope, Jeff?”
“Not much, Davy—at least not to speak of; only I’m a bit stunned. Just let me lie here. One o’ the North Star’s men can take my oar.”
There was no time for delicate attentions or inquiries in the circumstances, for the wreck of the mainmast had already given the boat, strong though it was, some damaging lunges as it shot wildly to and fro in the mad sea.
“All there?” demanded the coxswain of the saved men, who had been rapidly counting their numbers.
“All here, thank God!” answered Captain Millet.
“Haul off, lads!”
The men laid hold of the hawser, and hauled with a will—not a moment too soon, for the wreck was breaking up, and the sea around was strewn with heavy timbers. Having hauled the boat up to her anchor, the latter was got in, and the oars were shipped. These last being made fast to the boat with strong lines, had not been lost in all the turmoil, though two of them were broken. They were replaced, however, by spare oars; and then the lifeboat, being pulled out of danger, hoisted her scrap of sail and scudded away gaily before the wind for the shore with her rescued freight.
Of course the news spread like wildfire that the lifeboat had come in with the crew of the wrecked North Star—some said the whole crew, others, part of the crew; for verbal reports of this kind never do coincide after travelling a short way.
“Jeff, I must go straight to my sister, and be first wi’ the news,” said Captain Millet on landing. “You said my Rosebud is with her just now?”
“Yes, I’ll go with ’ee, captain.”
“Come along, then, lad; but I fear you’ve got hurt. You’re sure it isn’t broken ribs?”
“Oh, nothing to speak of,” replied the youth, with a light laugh.
“First however, I must telegraph to the owners,” said the captain.
This duty performed, and his men comfortably housed in a neighbouring inn, Captain Millet and Jeff went off to the cottage. It was about two in the morning when they reached it. No one had yet been there. In his excited state of mind, the captain, who had no nerves, thundered at the door.
If there was one thing that Miss Millet had a horror of, it was housebreakers. She leaped out of bed, and began to dress in terror, having roused Rose, who slept with her.
“Burglars never thunder like that, auntie,” suggested Rose, as she hastily threw on her garments.
Miss Millet admitted the force of the argument and then, somewhat relieved, concluded that it must be tipsy men. Under this impression she raised the window-sash—her bedroom being on the upper floor—and looked timidly out.
“Go away, bad, naughty men!” she said, in a remonstrative tone. “If you don’t I shall send for the police!”
“Why, Molly, don’t you know me?”
“Brother!” shrieked Miss Millet.
“Father!” exclaimed the Rosebud.
Need we say that, after a few more hurried touches to costume, the door was opened, and the untimely visitors were admitted? Need we add that when Rose, with a little cry of joy, leaped into her father’s arms and received a paternal hug, she leaped out of them again with a little shriek of surprise?
“Father, you’re all wet! a perfect sponge!”
“True, darling, I forgot! I’ve just been wrecked, and rescued by the lifeboat through God’s great mercy, ’long with all my crew; and there,” he added, pointing to Jeff, “stands the man that saved my life.”
If Rose loved the young coastguardsman before, she absolutely idolised him now. Something of the feeling must have betrayed itself on her fair face, for Jeff made a step towards her, as if under an irresistible impulse to seize her hand.
But at that moment he experienced an agonising sensation of pain, and, staggering backwards, sat down—almost fell—upon the sofa.
“Nothing—nothing,” he replied, to the anxious inquiries of Miss Millet. “Only a little pain, caused by the rap I got from that mast. Come now, auntie, don’t fuss about me, but sit down and hear what the captain has got to say.”
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