In the meanwhile the poor boatmen on the beach have nothing that they can do, but watch their fine boat, which was worth five hundred pounds, being torn, and hammered to pieces in the surf, plank after plank is wrenched from her, now with a loud crash she is broken in half, the two halves part, the anchor and cable fall through her, they can see part of the fore-peak with one side torn away, floating in the breakers; soon that also is rent to pieces, and nothing but fragments of the boat float in the surf, or are strewn about the beach, and the boatmen, heavy-hearted, but thankful that they have escaped with their lives, go slowly to their homes, to rest for a few hours, and recruit their strength, and then to be ready to form part of the crew of any other boat, and at the first summons to rush out again to the encounter with the stormiest seas. In a narrative of adventure and conflict with the seas that rage over the Goodwin Sands, it would not be well to refrain from bearing testimony to how readily, how gallantly, the men of Deal, of Broadstairs, of Walmer, and of Kingsdown, as well as of Ramsgate, man their respective life-boats, whenever the call is made for their services, and race out to the scene of action, full of hardihood, of skill, of courage--true Storm Warriors, ever ready to dare all and do all that they may rescue the drowning from a watery grave. CHAPTER XVI. THE LOSS OF THE "LINDA," AND THE RACE TO THE RESCUE. "A sudden crash, the mast is gone, And with it goes all hope; No longer can the fated crew With the surging waters cope. "Now they commit their souls to God, As men about to die; For vain seems all the help of man In this extremity." _G. Ward._ At daylight, in the morning after the destruction of the _Albion_ lugger, the weather grows worse and worse; the grey misty gloom that hangs over the sea is scarcely broken by the swift gleams of light that find a faint way through the fast drifting clouds. And the weather continues to grow more tempestuous still as the night grows on. Many ships come scudding northward before the gale; they make the South Sand Head light, and steer their course for the narrow Gull channel that runs between the Goodwin and Brake Sands. The South Sands Head light-ship is moored at the southern extremity of the Goodwin Sands; it is about three miles from the South Foreland light. In thick misty weather, which so often prevails in the Channel during westerly gales in winter time, it is often very difficult for vessels to make either of these lights. And as the edge of the Goodwin Sands is very steep at this part, and has deep water close to it, keeping the lead going scarcely affords sufficient protection, for between two casts of the lead a vessel running fast may well pass out of deep water on to the Sands, and there be lost.