It soon became evident that we must cast off the boat which we were towing; there was no other chance for her, and our desertion saved her. Captain Stanhope took the helm, keeping the launch’s bows to the beating seas; as he stood in the stern with his teeth set, a grim statue, as if he had been carved in stone, he was splendid. There was one specially evil moment, when the Admiral turned to me and said: “I don’t know what you think, but I have never seen death so near.” This coming from the hero of the Fatshan Creek—when his coxswain had his telescope driven into his stomach, his boat was sunk and five of his crew killed—the old sea warrior, who had survived heaven knows how many deadly fights with the wild head-hunters and pirates of Borneo—was not reassuring. Stanhope gave a sort of ghastly grin, but he went on doing battle with the demons in the waves; it was a tough fight, but at last he managed to bring us alongside a French man-of-war, the _Laplace_, which was lying in the roads, with H.M. surveying ship _Sylvia_ about a mile away. We hung on to the Frenchman; the officers were very kind to us; they lowered sardines and biscuits and mulled claret to us—the latter most acceptable, for we were up to our waists in water, drenched to the skin and half-frozen. They tried to send a chair down to hoist us on board, but the sea was running so high that it was impossible; the chair and its occupant would have been dashed to pieces against the ship’s side. So there we remained, being played cup and ball with for five hours; at last there came a slight—a very slight—lull in the storm; the Admiral determined to avail himself of it in order to make the _Sylvia_; it was a critical moment, for we had to turn in the trough of the sea and a second too late would have been fatal; had we shipped a wave our fires would have gone out, and then! But Stanhope was not the man to make a mistake; we danced on to the curled crest of the preceding wave, and after a struggle for life reached the _Sylvia_; by that time there was some further abatement of the weather, and we were able to be hoisted up one by one into safety and the joy of sleep between hot blankets, after a steaming and strong glass of grog. When we reached Hiōgo on the next afternoon, we were met by the news that the United States Admiral Bell, with his flag lieutenant and all his boat’s crew, had been drowned on the bar in the same storm. The English newspapers made a muddle between the two Admirals, and in London we were reported lost.[4]