cted by the Deal lifeboat--let me
describe one of the last noble deeds of mercy done on November 11,
1891, during an awful gale then blowing. In the morning of the day two
luggers launched to help vessels in distress, but such was the fury of
the gale, and so mountainous was the sea, that the luggers were
themselves overpowered, and had to anchor in such shelter as they could
get.

At 2 p.m., tiles flying in the streets, and houses being unroofed, it
was most difficult to keep one's feet; crowds of Deal boatmen in
sou'-westers and oilskins were ready round the lifeboat, and in the
gaps of the driving rain and in the smoking drifts of the howling
squalls which tore over the sea, they saw that a small vessel which had
anchored inside the Brake Sand about two miles off the mainland had
parted her anchors, and, being helpless and without sails, was drifting
towards and outwards to the Brake.

[Illustration: A forlorn hope]

Then the Deal lifeboat was off to the rescue, and with eighteen men in
her, three being extra and special hands on this dangerous occasion,
launched into a terrible sea, grand but furious beyond description.
Hurled down Deal beach by her weight, the lifeboat was buried in a wild
smother, and the next minute was left dry on the beach by the ghastly
recoil. The coming breaker floated her, and she swung to her haul-off
warp.

Then they set her close-reefed storm foresail and took her mizzen off.
Soon after an ominous crack, loud and clear, was heard in her foremast,
and such was the force of the gale that Roberts--the same brave man
who, having been second coxswain and in the lifeboat in the rescue of
the Iron Crown above described in 1865, on this perilous day in 1891
again headed his brave comrades as coxswain, with his old friend and
brother in arms, so to speak, E. Hanger, as second coxswain--hauled
down the foresail and set the small mizzen close-reefed on the
foremast, and even then the great lifeboat was nearly blown out of the
water.

With unbounded confidence in their splendid lifeboat, under this sail,
and indeed they can only work their weighty lifeboat under sail, they
literally flew before the blast into the terrific surf on the Brake
Sand, six men being required to steer her!

By this time the little vessel named The Thistle had struck the Sand,
but not heavily enough to break her in pieces, and hurled forwards by a
great roller, she grated and struck, and then was hurled forwards
a