They rig up a stay-sail upon the tottering mainmast, and as soon as the steamer gets a little way on the brig, they try and steer by it, raising and lowering the sail as the brig sheers one way or the other, and doing their utmost to keep her head straight. A very heavy sea strikes her on the bow, and she lurches right across the tide; at that moment the steamer's hawser tightens and strains, and the whole weight of the brig as she lies broadside to the seas dragging upon the rope, it breaks in a weak place, where it has got chafed against the pier. The brig falls into the trough of the sea; the waves begin to make a clean breach over her; water-logged and helpless as she is, with her deck down almost to the level of the sea; the men on board can now do but little, for time after time, as the seas sweep her decks, they have enough to do to hold on; still the boatmen on board work when they can, for they see that their lives depend upon getting the vessel in tow of the steamer before she can strike the Dyke Bank, which is just under her lee. They make all haste to haul in the broken end of the cable; they already have a good part of the cable on board, which they hauled in when they were about making for the harbour. They tell the French captain to get all his men to work, and have the ship's hawser ready, but the brig rapidly drifts before the heavy gale and with the tide towards the Dyke Bank, over which the seas are running with fearful violence, the poor shattered wreck must indeed be very soon broken up altogether if she once strikes amid that terrible rage of waters, and there, too, the waves will sweep over her with a violence sufficient to sweep the men from her decks; they must expect the tottering mast to go at the first shock; there would be no refuge in the rigging, and the deck would be virtually under water; it is doubtful indeed if she strikes whether the men will be able to hold on, even while the life-boat, which is close at hand, can reach them. The life-boatmen had made out to the rescue of the lugger, but when they saw that she was out of danger, and that the brig was under tow of the steamer, they put back, but directly the harbour-master sees that the brig is again adrift, he hastens to order the life-boat out once more to the rescue. Many of the excited people on the pier throng round the harbour-master, and entreat him to order the life-boatmen to take all the boatmen and the crew off the wreck at once. But the harbour-master knows the boatmen too well to think that they will be content to leave the wreck, whatever the danger may be, while there remains a single chance of saving her; he therefore tells the life-boatmen to keep as near to the wreck as possible.