d
coxswain, went on board with seven lifeboatmen to direct operations
there, and to heave on the warp, in order to move the vessel. Just
then a tug-boat hove in sight, and as the sea was calm, she backed in
and made fast her hawser to the Mandalay, at the captain's desire.
Though all on board heaved their best on the warp, and the tug-boat
Bantam Cock made every effort, they were unable to move the Mandalay
from her perilous position, and the tug-boat then gave the matter up as
a bad job and later in the evening went away.

It was now about 3 p.m., and the tide was again falling when the lugger
Champion, of Ramsgate, appeared and anchored in the swatchway spoken of
above. Some of her crew also went on board the Mandalay, and under the
directions and advice of Roberts and Hanger, the two Deal coxswains,
who were determined to win, all hands turned to throwing overboard the
cargo to lighten the vessel. They thus jettisoned about two hundred
tons of iron sleepers--working at this job till midnight--and threw it
over the right or starboard side of the ship, where it lay in a great
mass. It was never recovered, though every effort was afterwards made
to save it. It had been engulfed and disappeared in the Goodwins'
capacious maw.

The men of the lifeboat, now cold, wearied, and hungry, managed to get
an exceedingly frugal meal of tea and some bread and meat, and about 4
or 5 p.m. the light N.W. breeze fell away to a calm. Towards 7 p.m.
the Champion lugger at anchor hoisted her light, to indicate the
channel or swatchway by which the Mandalay would have to come out if
ever she moved at all. The wind now came strong from the S.W. and then
backed to S. and by W., and there was heard the far-off moan of
breaking surf, making it plain that there was a heavy sea rolling in
from the S.W. on a distant point of the Sands. The sea was evidently
coming before the wind, 'the moon looked,' the men said, 'as if she was
getting up contrary,' and Roberts said, 'We'll have trouble before
morning.' At 10 p.m. the wind came. The calm was 'but the grim repose
of the winter whirlwind,' and it soon blew a gale from the S.W. Before
this some Deal galley punts had also wisely made their way for the
shore, and the lifeboat and the Champion lugger were left alone on the
scene--than which nothing could now be wilder. Fortunately another
tug-boat, the Cambria, had anchored about 7 p.m. in deep water outside
the Goodwins, as close as was