some twenty other men, quickly launched her on the water of the
comparatively sheltered bay. "Remember!" cried the captain, standing up
in the stern-sheets, and looking back at Tom. "Shove off, lads! Give
way! We shall be wanted out there before long."

Bravely the men bent to their oars. Not many minutes had passed when
the boat got from under the shelter of the headland, and exposed to the
full force of the storm. It seemed scarcely possible that a boat could
live amidst the foaming, roaring seas which came rolling in towards the
beach. Her head was put at them, and on she went--now hid from view by
the seething mass of water--now reappearing on the summit of a wave. On
she went, in the teeth of the gale--on--on--rising and falling, every
instant in danger of being swallowed up by the fiercely-leaping seas.
Many of those who stood on the beach, cried--"The Lord have mercy on
them!"

CHAPTER THREE.

THE WRECK--SAILORS' HUMANITY--THE NEGRO--THE YOUNG STRANGER.

Two persons were watching the storm and the progress of the solitary
boat over the foaming water, from one of the windows of the old tower.
Both, as they watched, were praying that He who rules the wind would
protect the husband and the father, and those with him, from the dangers
to which they were exposed. Mrs Askew looked through the telescope at
the boat, a mere speck in the troubled ocean, till her eyes grew dim and
her heart sank with anxiety, and she was compelled to relinquish her
post to Margery.

The dismasted ship was some way to the south-west.

"The boat goes on bravely!" cried Margery.

"Now she is on the top of a wave--now she sinks into the trough--she is
rising again though--yes, yes, there she is! But the ship--they will
grieve to be too late; yet she is driving fearfully near those dark
rocks! and I heard papa say that not a human being would escape from the
ship that once strikes them."

"Heaven have mercy on them!" ejaculated Mrs Askew. "How many have
mothers and sisters, or wives and daughters expecting them at home--poor
people, poor people!"

"But perhaps the wind will change, and the ship may be driven along the
coast and into the bay, and they may yet be saved!" exclaimed Margery,
who was naturally more sanguine than her mother.

"I fear that there is no likelihood of that," said Mrs Askew. "See!
the boat is still a long way off, and she makes but slow progress--while
the ship is driven on to destruction with