“Hurrah, hurrah! theyʼve got the launch out; only she and the gig are left. Troops on the deck, drawn up in a line, and the women hoisted in first. Give them three cheers, men, though they canʼt hear you! Three cheers, if you are Englishmen! Glorious, glorious! There they go; never saw such a fine thing in all my life. Oh, I wish I had been a sailor!” The tears ran down the young parsonʼs cheeks, and were blown into the eyes of old Macbride; or else he had some of his own. “Shove off, shove off; nowʼs your time, for the under–current is failing her. Both of them off, as Iʼm alive; and yet a third boat I could not see. What magnificent management! That man ought to command a fleet. Two of them off for Christchurch Harbour; away, away, while the wind lulls; but what is the third boat doing?” Every one was looking: no one answered. Old Mac knew what it was, though his eyes were too old to see much. “Captain Roberts, Iʼll go bail, at his old tricks again. And thereʼs none with the sense to mutiny on him, and lash his legs, as we did in the _Samphire_.” “At the side of the ship there is some dispute. The boat is laden to the waterʼs edge, and the ship paying off to leeward, for there is no man at the wheel; there goes the sail from the bolt–ropes. If they donʼt push off, ere an oarʼs length, they will all be sucked into the rollers! Good God! now I see what it is. There is only room for one more, and not one of those three will take it. Two white–haired men and a girl. Life against honour with the old men; and what is life compared with it? Both resolved not to stir a peg; now they join to make the girl go. Her father has got her in his arms to pitch her into the boat; she clings around his neck so that both must go, or neither. He could not throw her; she falls on her knees, and clings to his legs to die with him. Smack—there, the rope is parted, and it is too late for further argument. The troops in the boat salute the officer, and he returns it as on parade.” “Name of that ship?” said Jacob, curtly, to old Sandy Macbride. “_Aliwal_, East India trader, Captain Roberts. Calcutta to Southampton.” “Then itʼs all up now with the _Aliwal_, and every soul on board of her.” “Donʼt want a pilot to tell us that,” answered old Mac, testily. “Youʼve seed a many good craft, pilot, but never one as could last five minutes on the Shingle Bank, with this sea running.” “Ropes, ropes!” cried Octave Pell; “in five minutes sheʼll be ashore here.” “No, she ‘ont, nor yet in ten,” answered his landlord, gruffly; “sheʼll fetch away to the eastward first, now she is in the tide again, specially with this gale on; and sheʼll take the ground over yonner, and go to pieces with the next breaker.”