They find the water more and more broken as they near the ship; the waves are flying high over the lost vessel; the ebb-tide is running strongly. From the breaking seas, and from the position of the wreck, now on her broadside with her keel to windward, they cannot anchor on the windward side and let the boat drop gradually in upon the wreck, their only chance is to run with the wind abeam right in upon the fore-rigging. It is true that there is considerable danger in this, but at such times the life-boat men cannot stop to calculate danger, and must be ready oftentimes to risk their own lives in their attempts to save the lives of others. They, therefore, charge in straight amid the floating wreckage, and the boat hits hard upon the iron windlass, which is still hanging to the deck of the vessel. A rope is thrown round the fore-rigging, and the group of exhausted sailors shout with joy as they greet the glad friendly faces of the life-boat men coming in upon them out of the storm of desolation that rages around. The crew, sixteen in number, including the pilot and a boy of about eleven years of age, are to the last extent exhausted and feeble, and slowly drop one by one from the mast into the boat, and leave to its fate the last storm-torn fragment of the _Demerara_, which has been for so many hours their only hope. "Oars out, and pull hard; let us get clear of all this wreckage before we have a hole knocked in the boat's bottom," and every boatman strains his hardest; soon they are clear; now a moment's delay ere they hoist the sail, and a great shaking of hands all round, and warm greetings, and heartfelt thanks from the saved ones, and the boat's sail is again hoisted, and away they make through the surf. It is now nearly ten o'clock in the morning; they soon reach the steamer, which is waiting to leeward. The emigrants have been watching the movements of the boat with the keenest interest; their feelings of sympathy are moved to their very depths, by the fact of their having passed so lately through similar scenes of danger and rescue. They crowd the deck, and shout after shout greets the boat; the women cheer at the top of their voices, and welcome, with outstretched arms, alike the rescued and the rescuers. One warm-hearted Irishwoman seizes the coxswain's hands in both hers, and shakes them with might and main, sobbing out, as the tears roll down her cheeks, "I'll pray the Holy Father for you the longest day that I live."