I could see the boat clearly now as she rose to the height of a sea, her black wet side sparkling out an instant to the moonlight ere she sank out of sight past the ivory white head of the surge sweeping under her. She seemed to be deep with men; but I could count only two oars. She was rushed down upon us by the impulse of the sea and wind, and I felt my heart stand still as she drove bow on into us, whirling round alongside in a manner to make you look for the wreck of her in staves washing away under our counter. She was full of people, with women amongst them--poor creatures, in great white caps and long golden earrings, the men for the most part in huge fishermen’s boots, and tasselled caps and jerseys that might have been of any colour in that light. One could just make these features out, but no more, for the contents of the boat as it rose soaring and falling alongside were but a dark huddle of human shapes, writhing and twisting like a mass of worms in a pot, vociferating to us in the scarce intelligible _patois_ of Gravelines or Calais or Boulogne. There was no magic in the commands even of British officers to British sailors to put the least element of calm into the business. It was not only that at one moment the boat alongside seemed to be hove up to the Indiaman’s covering-board and that at the next she was rushing down into a chasm that laid bare many feet of the big ship’s yellow sheathing: there was the dreadful expectation of the whole of the human freight being overset and drowning alongside in a breath; there were the heart-rending shouts of the distracted people; there was the total inability of captain and mates to make themselves understood. How it was managed I will not pretend to explain. By some means the boat was dragged to the gangway, grinding and thumping herself horribly against the Indiaman’s rolling, stooping, massive side; then bowlines and ropes in plenty were dangled over or flung into her; and through the unshipped gangway, illuminated by half-a-dozen lanterns, and crowded by a hustling mob of sailors and passengers, one after another, the women and the men--most of the men coming first!--were dragged inboards, some of them falling flat upon the deck, some dropping on their knees and crossing themselves; a few of the women weeping passionately, one of them sobbing in dreadful paroxysms, the others mute as statues, as though terror and the presence of death had frozen the lifeblood in them and arrested the very beating of their hearts. Two of them fell into the sea; but they had lines about them and were dragged up half dead. They were all of them dripping wet, the men’s sea-boots full of water; whilst the soaked gowns of the women flooded the deck on which they stood, as though several buckets of brine had been capsized there.