The foreyard was pointed, and the gear of the mainsail hauled up, while Richard Sparkes, with the aid of five hands, swung the lifeboat into its davits. On the poop deck there was terrible confusion. The married ladies crowded round poor Mrs Leyton, who was half swooning from her anxiety and fear; Alice, refusing all assistance from Captain Lovell or anybody else, stood with clenched teeth and strained eyeballs watching the two black specks that bobbed up and down like corks upon the water; and the rest of the passengers pressed against the taffrail, talking in loud and excited tones to each other, whilst they watched the fight for life or death. In a few minutes the boat was pushed off, and the sturdy sailors made the oars bend beneath the weight of their arms. Mr Sparkes held the tiller, and kept cheering on the men, whilst he eagerly watched the objects ahead of them. What a long, long time it seemed. The boat did not appear to gain a dozen yards, as it plunged and tossed against the billows. But the seamen had muscles that had been developed by climbing and hauling. All their sinews were like springs of steel. Each man, with one foot firmly planted against the thwart in front of him, lay back upon his oar, with a long, sweeping, steady English stroke, till his head was nearly parallel with his companion’s knee--a stretch that would have made a Dutchman look on with awe, mingled with admiration, and a pull that sent the boat’s stem through the rollers, cutting them like a knife, and plumping her down with a heavy bump on the other side. Vernon Blythe and the child were now fully a mile astern. He had managed to grasp the life-buoy, which was a good thing for both of them, for poor little Winnie clung convulsively round his throat, entirely impeding his swimming, whilst she sobbed and gasped, as she tried to recover her breath after the nauseous doses of salt water she had swallowed. She was a pretty little creature, and just at that age when children become quaint and interesting. Her brown hair--which curled naturally, like that of her elder sister--now hung in a wet clinging mass about her face and shoulders. The gay ‘granny’ bonnet was gone: it had floated far away to leeward. The velvet cloak still hung tightly about her, and added considerably to her weight. Her little fat and shapely legs, enveloped in long Hessian boots, now shuddering and almost stiff with cold, rested on Jack Blythe’s hips. It was a hard struggle for him to keep her above water, for the terrified child nearly choked him, and he was exhausted from swimming in the boisterous, choppy sea, that kept on breaking in a remorseless lather over his head and face, and prevented him from breathing freely. ‘Don’t--cry--baby. There’s--a--boat--coming,’ he gasped; but the little one did not answer him, except by a heart-rending sob, and a tighter pressure on his throat.