prudent to the swatchway before
described; but the inevitable struggle was regarded with the greatest
anxiety by all hands, notwithstanding the proffered help of the
tug-boat and the lightening of the ship.

About midnight the rising tide had again covered the Goodwins, but the
surface, no longer fair and calm, was now lashed into fury by the gale.
The seas were breaking everywhere, and as the moon emerged from behind
a flying cloud, far as the eye could see was one sheet of tumbling,
raging breakers, except the narrow channel in which the brave Champion
rode with her guiding light, plunging heavily even in the deep channel.
But the most furious sea raged on the western jaw of the deep
swatchway; there currents and cross seas met, and the breakers rose up
and clashed and struck together in weightier masses and with especial
fury. Now a black cloud covered the moon, and again as it swept away
came the clear moonlight, but in the darkness and in the moonlight the
scene was equally tremendous.

As the water deepened round the ship, sea after sea broke over her with
such increasing fury that the work of jettisoning the cargo, which had
been carried on under great difficulties, had to be given up, and the
hatches had to be put on and battened down tight, to keep the ship from
filling. The same seas that broke over the Mandalay also struck and
buried the lifeboat as she rode alongside to the full scope of her
cable, and as each breaker went roaring past she as regularly freed
herself from the water which had been hurled into her the moment before.

At one o'clock this wild winter morning the time came for a final
effort to float the ship; and the steam-tug Cambria that had been
waiting outside the Sands now moved in, and, guided by the riding light
of the Champion lugger, anchored for this purpose in the swatchway, was
cautiously manoeuvred in through the narrow channel, and feeling her
way with the lead at great risk came even into the broken water in
which the Mandalay was lying. This broken water was only fourteen or
fifteen feet deep, and though barely enough to float the tug-boat in a
sort of raging smother of froth, was not deep enough to float the
Mandalay, which required three feet more and still lay firm as a rock,
and, like a tide-washed rock, was swept by the seas which were flying
over her.

Directed by the second coxswain, attempts were now made to get the
Cambria's steel hawser on board the vessel, and in