ing a rope
and otherwise facilitating their anticipated escape. Guy was the first
to respond to the cry. Having placed himself in a very exposed position
in order that his person might shelter Lucy Burton, he had been benumbed
more thoroughly than his comrades, but his blood was young, and it only
wanted the call to action to restore him to the full use of his powers
and faculties. Not so with the missionary. He had become almost
insensible, and, but for the effort to protect his child which animated
and sustained him, must certainly have fallen into the sea. Some of the
men, too, were utterly helpless. Their stiffened hands, indeed,
maintained a death-like gripe of the ropes, but otherwise they were
quite incapable of helping themselves.

As for Lucy, she had been so well cared for and protected from the
bitter fury of the wind, that, although much exhausted, terrified, and
shaken, she was neither so be-numbed nor so helpless as some of her less
fortunate companions.

Presently the lifeboat was close on the lee side of the mast, and a
cheer burst from her crew when they saw the number of survivors on the
cross-trees.

"Look out!" cried the man in the bow of the boat, as he swung a
heavily-loaded stick round his head, and flung it over the mast. The
light line attached to this was caught by Bax, and by means of it a
stout rope was drawn from the boat to the mast of the "Nancy" and made
fast.

And now came the most dangerous and difficult part of the service.
Besides the danger of the mast being broken by the violence of the
increasing storm and hurled upon the lifeboat, an event which would have
insured its destruction, there was the risk of the boat herself being
stove against the mast by the lashing waves which spun her on their
white crests or engulfed her in their black hollows, as if she had been
a cork. The greatest care was therefore requisite in approaching the
wreck, and when this was accomplished there still remained the
difficulty of getting the exhausted crew into the boat.

Had they all been young and strong like Bax or Guy, they could have slid
down the rope at the risk of nothing worse than a few bruises; but with
several of them this method of escape was impossible;--with Lucy and her
father it was, in any circumstances, out of the question. A block and
tackle was therefore quickly rigged up by Bluenose, by which they were
lowered.

Poor Lucy had not the courage to make the attempt until