ith the lead-
line in his hand, anxiously noting the shoaling water as the smack
drifted sternward toward the wreck.

"Hold on, for'ard," he shouted at last, when the little _Seamew_ had
driven so far in upon the sand that there was little more than a foot of
water beneath her keel when she sank into the trough of the sea. "Now
lay aft here, all hands, and let's see if we can get a rope aboard of
'em."

The smack was now fairly among the breakers, which came thundering down
upon the shoal with indescribable fury, boiling and foaming and tumbling
round the little vessel in a perfect chaos of confusion, and falling on
board her in such vast volumes that had everything not been securely
battened down beforehand she must inevitably have been swamped in a few
minutes. As for her crew, every man of them worked with the end of a
line firmly lashed round his waist, so that in the extremely likely
event of his being washed overboard his comrades might have the means of
hauling him on board again.

Nor wore these the only dangers to which the adventurers were exposed.
There was the possibility that the cable, stout as it was, might part at
any moment, and in such a case their fate would be sealed, for nothing
could then prevent the smack from being dashed to pieces on the sands.

Yet all these dangers were cheerfully faced by these men from a pure
desire to serve their fellow-creatures, and without the slightest hope
of reward, for they knew at the very outset that there would not be much
hope of salvage, with a vessel on the sands in such a terrible gale.

The wreck was now directly astern of the smack, and only about one
hundred feet distant, so that she could be distinctly seen, as it
fortunately happened that the sky had been steadily clearing for the
last quarter of an hour, allowing the moon to peep out unobscured now
and then through an occasional break in the clouds. By the increasing
light the smack's crew were not only enabled to note the exact position
of the wreck, but they could also see that a considerable number of
people were clustered upon the poop of the half-submerged hull, some of
them being women and children. The poor souls were all watching with
the most intense anxiety the movements of those on board the smack, and
if anything had been needed to stimulate the exertions of her crew it
would have been abundantly found in the sight of those poor helpless
mothers and their little ones clinging there t