The cable goes out by the run, and is too soon exhausted, for with a jerk it brings the boat up within sixty feet of the vessel. As the poor emigrants see the boat stop short, their cries for help are frantic, and sound dismally in the boatmen's ears, as slowly and laboriously they haul in the cable, and with much trouble get up their anchor, before making another attempt to get alongside the ship. In the meantime they answer the cries of the people with shouts to encourage them, and the moon shining out, the emigrants see that they are not deserted. The sea is so heavy, and the boat's anchor has taken so firm a hold, that it is a long time before they can get it up; at last they succeed, and now sail within fifty fathoms of the vessel, before they heave the anchor overboard again. It is necessary if they are to windward of a vessel to let the anchor down as far as possible from her, that they may get plenty of sea-room when they haul up to it again, so that when they set sail they may have space enough to sail clear of the vessel upon which the seas would throw the boat bodily, if they did not allow themselves room to steer a course which shall be clear of her. They let the cable out gradually and drop alongside; they get a hawser from the bow, and another from the stern of the vessel, and by these they are enabled to keep the boat moderately well in position, the man on board hauling and veering on the ropes, and upon the boat's cable attached to the anchor, so as to keep the boat sufficiently near without letting her strike against the sides of the vessel, and this, in the broken seas and rapid tide, is a matter of no small difficulty. The ship is the _Fusilier_, bound from London to Australia; her captain and pilot shout out to the men on board the boat, "How many can you carry? we have more than one hundred souls on board, more than sixty women and children." And it is with no little dismay that the terrified passengers look down upon the boat half buried in spray, and wonder how she could by any possibility be the means of rescuing such a crowd of people. The men answer from the boat that they have a steamer near, and that they will take off the passengers and crew in parties to her. Two of the life-boat men, as the boat lifts on the top of a sea, make a sprint, catch hold of the man-ropes and climb on board the ship. "Who comes here?" shouts the captain, as the two boatmen, clad in their oilskin overalls, with their cork belts on, and pale and half exhausted with their long battling with wind and sea, jump from the bulwarks amid the excited passengers who crowd the deck. "Two men from the life-boat," is the reply, and the passengers throng round them, seize them by the hands, and some even cling to them with an energy of fear, that requires considerable force to overcome. The light from the ship's lamps and the faint moonlight reveal the mass of people on board, and the terrible