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Suddenly, through darkness, spray, and hurly-burly thick, a ghostly boat is seen! The lifeboat! Well do the seamen know its form! A cheer arouses sinking hearts, and hope once more revives. The work of rescuing is vigorously, violently, almost fiercely begun. The merest child might see that the motto of the lifeboat-men is "Victory or death."
Before proceeding to other matters it is well to add that, when intelligence of this disaster was telegraphed to the Lifeboat Institution, a new lifeboat was immediately forwarded to Tynemouth, temporarily to replace the damaged Constance. Instructions were given for the relief of the widows and children of the two lifeboat-men who had perished, and 26 pounds was sent to the crew of the boat.
Sometimes these duties involved great hardship, and frequent risk to life and limb; for, as is well known, our coastguardsmen not only perambulate our shores in all weathers, but often work the rocket apparatus for saving life from shipwreck, and are frequently called upon to assist the lifeboat-men by putting off to the rescue in their own boats when others are not available.
In an instant the boat sinks into a gulf, sweeps away as far as the ropes will let her, and is buried in foam, while the woman is slipping from the grasp of the men who hold her. "Don't let her go! don't let her go!" is roared by the lifeboat-men, but she has struggled out of their grasp.
The men would not now launch the other boats. Indeed it would have been useless, for no ordinary boat could have lived in such a sea. Soon afterwards all the boats were washed away and destroyed, and the destruction of the steamer itself seemed about to take place every moment. While this terrible fight for dear life was going on, the lifeboat-men were not idle.
On the contrary, the life-saving service, like all other government work, for a good many years fell into the hands of politicians: the superintendent was chosen because he had given some help to his party, and he appointed his own friends as lifeboat-men, often tavern loafers like himself.
A blow from one of these yards would have stove the boat in, so the Portuguese crew twelve men and a boy were taken from the wreck, and the lifeboat-men endeavoured to push off.
Ponder this well, good reader, and ask yourself the question, "Is all as it should be here? Have I and my fellow-inlanders nothing to do but read, admire, and say, Well done?" A hint is sufficient at this point. I will return to the subject hereafter. Sometimes our gallant lifeboat-men when called into action go through a very different and not very comfortable experience.
The signal was given. The lifeboat-men rushed to their boats. "First come, first served," is the rule there. She was over-manned, and some of the brave fellows had to leave her. The tight little tug took the boat in tow, and in less than half an hour rushed out with her into the intense darkness, right in the teeth of tempest and billows. The engines of the Aid are powerful, like her whole frame.
Thus, for ten apparently endless hours the perishing seamen hung suspended over what seemed to be their grave. They hung thus in the midst of pitchy darkness after their blazing tar-barrels had been extinguished. And what of the lifeboat-men during all this time? Were they asleep? Nay, verily!
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