Another hour's hard struggle, and they reached the North Foreland. There the sea was running tremendously high--the gale was still increasing; the snow, sleet, and spray, rushed by with hurricane speed. Although it was only early in the afternoon, the air was so darkened by the storm that it seemed a dull twilight. The captain of the boat was steering; he peered out between his collar and cap, but looked in vain for the steamer. He knew that she was all right, for the rope kept taught; but many times, although she was only a hundred yards ahead, he could see nothing of her, still less able were the men on board the steamer to see the life-boat. Often did they anxiously look astern, and watch for a break in the drift and scud to see that she was all right; for although there could be no doubt as to the strain upon the rope, she might be towing along bottom up, or have all her men washed out of her, for all they could tell. The master of the steamer watched the seas, which broke over the _Aid_, making her stagger again, as they rushed towards the life-boat, and several times the fear that she was gone came over him. But steamer and life-boat still battled successfully against the storm. As soon as they were round the North Foreland, the snow squall cleared and they sighted Margate; all anxiously looked for the wreck, but nothing of her could they see. They saw a lugger riding just clear of the pier, with foremast gone, and anchor down to prevent her being driven ashore by the gale. They next sighted the Margate life-boat driven ashore and abandoned in Westgate Bay, looking a complete wreck, the waves beating over her. A little beyond this they caught sight of the second life-boat, also washed ashore; and then they learnt to realize to the full the gallant efforts that had been made to save the shipwrecked, and the destruction that had been wrought as effort after effort had been overcome by the fury of the storm. But where was the wreck? Had she been beaten to pieces, all lives lost, and were they too late? A heavy mass of cloud and snowstorm rolled on to windward of them in the direction of the Sands off Margate, and they could not make out any signs of the wreck there. There was just a chance that it was the Woolpack Sand that she was on. They thought it the more likely, as the first intelligence of the wreck that came to Ramsgate declared that such was the case; and accordingly they determined to make for the Woolpack Sand, which was about three miles farther on; they had scarcely decided upon this, when, providentially, there was a break in the drift of the snow to windward, and they suddenly caught sight of the wreck. But for this sudden clearance in the storm they would, as we have said, have proceeded farther on, and some hours must have passed before they could have found out their mistake and got back again, and by that time every soul of the poor shipwrecked crew must have perished.