A third time they are providentially saved from what seemed almost like certain death; and yet they have only commenced the beginning of their troubles, for is there not before them the long range of sands, with the broken fierce waves and raging surf, and many a fragment of wreck, like sunken rocks studded here and there, upon any one of which, if they strike, it must be death to them all? The boat is still aground upon the ridge of sand. She lifts, and is swept round, and grounds again broadside to the sea, which makes a clean breach over her. The Portuguese are all clinging together under the lee of the foresail, and there is no getting them to move. The crew are holding on where they can; sometimes buried in the water, often with only their heads out. The captain is standing up in the stern, holding on by the mizen-mast; sometimes he can see nothing of the men as the surf sweeps over them. He orders the chests to be thrown overboard, but most of them are already washed away; the rest are unlashed from their fastenings, and lifted as the men can get at them, and the next wave carries them away. Heavy masses of cloud darken the sky; the rain falls in torrents; it is bitterly cold; the men can do nothing but hold on; the tide rises gradually; suddenly the boat lifts again; it is caught by the driving sea, and is flung forward. There is no keeping her straight, the water is too broken; her stern frees itself before the bow, and round she swings; her bow lifts a little; onward she goes a few yards, and grounds again by the stern; round sweeps the bow, and with another jerk she comes broadside on the Sands again, lurching over on her side, with the terrible surf making a clean sweep over the waist. It is a struggle for the men to get their breath, the spray beats over them in such clouds. This happens time after time. The captain calls the men aft, that the boat may be lightened in the bow, and thus be more likely to keep straight. Most of the boatmen come to the stern, but the Portuguese will not move, and even some of the boatmen are so exhausted with the violent exertions they have made, and by the beating of the waves, that they are almost unconscious, and only able to cling to the gunwale and thwarts of the boat with an iron, nervous grasp, and are thus just able to save themselves from being washed out of her. As the coxswain notices their exhausted state, he expects each time as the big waves wash over them to see some of them leave go their hold and be carried away; and although he makes as light of it as he can, and tries to cheer them up, he himself has very small hope of ever seeing land again.