The seas have been steadily increasing in violence, and are now running very high, and as they curl and break, the crest of each wave is caught by the fierce wind, and dispersed in a cloud of spray. Bravely the boat sails on through the troubled seas; she is constantly overrun by the waves, and filled with water, but each time she speedily regains all her buoyancy, and bounds on over the seas. The men have almost too much confidence in her, as if no amount of sea and wind could possibly capsize her; they carry on a press of canvas, until the stout masts bend and the ropes strain again, and they make the sheet fast; but now a fierce huge wave comes rushing along, catches the boat broadside on, lifts the boat high on its crest, and then completely curls her over and passes, leaving the boat capsized, and all the men struggling in the water. But it is however only a passing victory, after all, that the sea can boast over the life-boat; at once she rights herself, gets rid of the water that fills her, and rides upon the seas as bravely as ever. Happily all the men have on their cork jackets, and in them they float breast high; never was there such a wild dance as they now seem to dance; tossed high and poised for a moment on the cone of a leaping wave, again engulfed in the hollow trough of a sea, with a wall of tumbling water all around; rising and falling in quick succession, their arms beating broken time as they struggle to swim towards the boat, which begins to drift fast away; it is fortunate that some of the men have retained hold of the life-lines, the ends of which are fastened to the boat, by these they haul themselves alongside her, and all soon succeed in getting on board. Away again through the Downs, across the high rolling seas, making for the shore, but their troubles are not yet at an end; a blast of wind, fiercer than its fellows, strikes the sail, the boat careens over; at that moment a huge wave leaps on the boat, strikes it with such force and so high, that it fills the sail with water and drives the boat bodily over, and the second time she is capsized, and the men, before they have recovered from the exhaustion caused by their former struggle, are the second time plunged into the sea, to find themselves battling for their lives with the waves. The cork jackets keep them afloat as before, but the waves run over them, and they are almost smothered in clouds of foam, until they are thoroughly worn out by the rush and beat of the seas which break over their heads. Up and down, tumbling here and there in the turmoil of the seas, pale and gasping for breath, almost too faint to make any struggle to regain the boat, becoming rapidly unconscious; this time the wild dance mid the raging seas becomes truly too much like a dance of death. Happily a powerful Deal lugger is near the scene of the disaster; her crew at once do their best to pick up and return to the life-boat those of the men who are themselves unable to gain it.