For about forty minutes they battle their way, and then find themselves near the wreck; the signal flame from the burning tar-barrel leaps, and flickers, and burns low, and is almost extinguished by the spray; the life-boatmen watch it anxiously, for they know that if the crew of the vessel cannot succeed in keeping it alight, it will be almost impossible for them to find the vessel in the darkness of the night; the crew of the schooner also feel this to be the case, and bring clothes and bedding, and all the tar and oil they can get at, and by great exertions manage to keep the fire burning. FOOTNOTE: [1] NOTE.--_Extract from Newspaper._--"Five vessels wrecked off Margate:--On Friday evening there were about one hundred and fifty vessels anchored in the Margate and North Foreland Roads, where they were sheltered from a south-westerly gale. Suddenly, about one o'clock on Saturday morning, a violent gale sprung from the north-east, and the vessels in the Roads were compelled to slip their anchors and seek the nearest shelter. Rockets and flares were seen displayed in all directions from the numerous distressed vessels. The Broadstairs life-boat and the Margate life-boat, the _Quiver_, put to sea. Four vessels were driven ashore, three in the Main, and one in Margate Bay, and the crews of three were saved by the Broadstairs life-boat. Another vessel was run down off the North Foreland, and it is reported that another has gone to pieces on the Tongue Sand, and, it is feared, with all hands." CHAPTER XIV. THE WRECK OF THE "MARY"--A STRUGGLE FOR DEAR LIFE. "Sleep on; thy corse is far away, But love bewails thee yet; For thee the heart wrung sigh is breathed, And lovely eyes are wet." _G. D. Prentice._ "Now, my men, make ready!" the coxswain cries; "we've got our work before us." The night is wild, and dark, and bitter, blinding snow, and sleet, and storm-wrack rush along on the wings of the gale. The Sands are alive with the rolling breakers, the fierce dash and seethe of the waves upon them add to the roar of the tempest; never was a battle-field more full of raging foes than is that into the midst of which our Storm Warriors are about to rush; never was band of men more beset by foes, more helplessly, hopelessly beset, than are the crew of the _Mary_; how shall they be plucked from the midst of ten thousand raging waves? any one of which would swamp an ordinary boat; it can only by any possibility be done by such a boat as the life-boat, and only by such men as the life-boatmen. And now the men settle to their work.