w--pointing eagerly
ahead.

"It's on'y a bit o' wreck, boy," cried a comrade.

"Right you are," returned the bowman.

"There he is, though, an' no mistake, this time. Port!--port!
hard-a-port!"

As he spoke, the boat swept round into a sort of cross-current among the
waves, where an object resembling a man was observed spinning slowly
round like a lazy teetotum. They were soon alongside. A dozen
claw-like hands made a simultaneous grasp, and hauled the object on
board with a mighty cheer, for it was, indeed, the coxswain--alive,
though much exhausted--with his precious little curly-haired burden in
his arms.

The burden was also alive, and not much exhausted, for the weather was
comparatively warm at the time, and Bob had thrust her little head into
the luxuriant thicket of his beard and whiskers; and, spreading his
great hands and arms all over her little body, had also kept her well
out of the water--all which the great buoyancy of his lifebelt enabled
him easily to do.

Shall we describe the joy of the widow and the grandfather? No; there
are some sacred matters in life which are best left to the imagination.
The sunshine which had begun to scatter the clouds, and flood both land
and sea, was typical of the joy which could find no better means than
sobs wherewith to express gratitude to the God of mercy.

We have said that the gale had begun to abate. When the lifeboat
escaped from the turmoil of cross-seas that raged over the sands and got
into deep water, all difficulties and dangers were past, and she was
able to lay her course for Greyton harbour.

"Let's have another swig o' that cold tea," said Bob Massey, resuming
his rightful post at the helm. "It has done me a power o' good. I had
no notion that cold tea was so good for warmin' the cockles o' one's
heart."

Ah! Bob Massey, it was not the cold tea, but the saving of that little
girl that sent the life's blood careering so warmly through your veins!
However, there's no harm done in putting it down to the credit of the
cold tea. Had the tea been hot, there might have been some truth in
your fancy.

"What's the time?" asked Bob, with a sudden look of anxiety.

"Just gone ten," said Slag, consulting a chronometer that bore some
resemblance to an antique warming-pan.

The look of anxiety on the coxswain's countenance deepened.

"Ease off the sheet a bit," he said, looking sternly over the weather
quarter, and whistling for a fresher bree