gain, seas breaking over her and her hapless crew. So thick was the
air with the sea spray carried along in smoking spindrifts that the
Deal men lost sight of the wreck while they raced into the surf of the
Brake.

In that surf--which I beheld from the end of Ramsgate Pier, being
called there by imperative business, and thus deprived of the privilege
of being with the men--the lifeboat was apparently swallowed up. She
was filled over and over again, and sometimes there was not a man of
the crew visible to the coxswain, who stood aft steering in wind which
amounted to a hurricane, and, according to Greenwich Observatory,
representing a velocity of eighty miles an hour.

At this moment I was witness of the fine sight of the Ramsgate tug and
lifeboat steaming out of Ramsgate Harbour, brave coxswain Fish steering
the lifeboat, which plunged into the mad seas behind the tug, while
blinding clouds of spray flew over the crew. Those splendid 'storm
warriors' also rescued the crew of the Touch Not, wrecked that day on
the Ramsgate Sands; but just while they were steaming out of Ramsgate,
away on the horizon as far as I could bear to look against the fury of
the wind and rain, struggling alone and unaided in the surf of the
Brake Sand, I beheld the Deal lifeboat engaged in the rescue of The
Thistle.

There indeed before my eyes was a veritable wrestle with death for
their own lives and those of the wrecked vessel's crew. The latter had
beaten over the Brake Sand, and was anchored close outside it, the
British ensign hoisted 'Union down,' and sinking. Sinking lower and
lower, and only kept afloat by her cargo of nuts, her decks level with
the sea which poured over them. In the agony of despair her crew of
five had taken to their own small boat, being afraid, from signs known
to seamen and from the peculiar wallowing of their vessel, that she was
about to make her final plunge to the bottom.

But now the great blue lifeboat rode like a messenger from heaven
alongside them, and their brave preservers dragged them over her sides
into safety from the very mouth of destruction.

Amidst words of gratitude and with praise on their lips to a merciful
God, the utterly exhausted crew saw the Deal men set sail and fight
their way again through the storm landwards.

Looking back for an instant, all hands saw the appalling sight of the
vessel they had left turn on her side and sink to the bottom of the sea.

With colours flying,