"Impossible! impossible! no boat could live in such a sea, and over the Sands, impossible!"--"It is true, sir; we are Ramsgate boatmen and belong to a lugger; we went in from her on to the Sands to a wreck, and could not get back to her again." And the captain declares that their escape has been wonderful indeed. The feelings of the men at finding themselves safe are perfectly overwhelming; the reaction after those long hours of almost hopeless and constant struggle; it is too much for them, especially added, as it is, to the condition of physical exhaustion to which they are reduced. Some of them can scarcely speak; one of them, realizing the almost miracle by which they have been saved, leans against the boom, repeating in a broken voice, "What, I saved! I saved--I saved! one of the worst! one of the worst!" Another can only think of the words he had so often repeated to one of his mates, who had seemed almost dying during the night. "Come, cheer up! come, cheer up! stick to your oar, keep up your heart, man," and he continues for some time repeating these words in a strange dreamy way. The coxswain, upon whom the chief anxiety and greatest stress of mind had fallen, for he had hour, after hour, to sit watching every sea as it rolled to them and meet it with the tiller, felt more than the others the effect of the night's work; he soon after fell very ill, was nigh to death's door, and did not recover his strength for a twelvemonth. The captain, officers, and crew of the American ship are full of sympathy and kindness. The captain takes the men into his cabin, and gives them each a little brandy, then offers them dry clothes, and orders beds to be made up for them in the cabin: the clothes and the bed the men think too kind, but the beef-steak supper and the glass of grog all round, as soon as they have eaten a little, is not to be refused; and the hardy fellows are soon sound asleep on the cabin-floor, with all their perils for a time forgotten. In the morning the gale has greatly abated; the men have a hearty breakfast provided by the hospitable captain: their boat is by his orders hauled up, baled out, and as everything has been washed out of her, the captain lends them oars, and they start for Ramsgate, giving their most hearty thanks for the great skill with which they were got on board the ship and saved, and for the kindness they have received on board. When the crew of the _Champion_ lugger had put the men she had saved from the wreck on board the life-boat, they found that they could not well get back to Ramsgate in the then state of the wind and tide, and they were forced to run for Dover.