Some of the men fancy they can see fragments of the life-boat heaving about with the other wreckage, but whether it is so or not, the end seems the same, and after one last careful but fruitless look around, to see whether there are any signs of the life-boat elsewhere on the Sands, sadly they turn the steamer's head away from the dreary fatal Goodwin, and make for the harbour. They grieve for brave comrades tried in many scenes of danger, and think with faint hearts of the melancholy report they have to give, and it is but little consolation to them in the face of so great a loss, to remember that they, at all events, have done all in their power, and that they have nothing to reproach themselves with. To return to the life-boat men; all hands have deserted the brig, and there are now in the life-boat thirteen Portuguese sailors, five Broadstairs boatmen, and her ordinary crew, consisting of thirteen Ramsgate boatmen, altogether thirty-one souls. The small _Dreadnought_ life-boat has been swung against the brig by the force of the tide, and is so damaged that no one dares venture in her. The tide is rising fast, the gale blowing as hard as ever, the surf running very high and breaking over the vessel, so that one constant torrent of spray and foam is falling with no light weight, or small volume, upon the life-boat which is under the lee of the brig, and the men have no protection from the falling sheets of spray. The vessel is rolling heavily, she has worked a bed in the sands, which the run of tide has somewhat enlarged, and in this she half floats, rolling from side to side with fearful rapidity and violence. The life-boat is afloat within the circle of the bed; the brig threatens to roll over her. "Shove and haul off, quick! Shove and haul off," are the orders. Some with oars, pushing against the brig, others hauling might and main upon the brig's hawser, they manage to pull the boat two or three yards up towards the boat's anchor, and to get her a little farther off from the side of the brig. Now she grounds heavily upon the edge of the basin that has been worked in the sand by the brig. "Strain every muscle, men; now, or never! now, or never! for your lives pull!" and pull and strain they did. No! not one inch will the life-boat stir; she falls over on her side, the surf and seas sweep over her, the men cling to the thwarts and gunwale; all but her own crew give up all thoughts of hope; but they know the capabilities of the boat and do not lose heart--Crash! the brig heaves, and crushes down upon her bilge; again and again she half lifts upon an even keel and rolls, and lurches from side to side; each time that she falls to leeward, she comes more and more over and nearer to the boat.