For the present Villiers could do nothing but keep the boat's head on to the seas and wait. A hundred feet of coral reef, showing in the trough of every breaker that swept over it, lay between him and the wreck. To attempt to get alongside the _Zug_ would be hopeless. Had there been a ghost of a chance, he would have taken it in his efforts to save life, but there was none. All he could do was to stand by and wait, trusting that some of the luckless Germans might be swept over the reef into the smoother water inside the lagoon. At length one of the _Zug's_ crew took a desperate step and plunged into the sea. Caught by a crested breaker, he was hurled for a full fifty yards before he disappeared from view. "Watch for him!" shouted Villiers. "He's over the reef." A few seconds later the man reappeared, feebly striking out. He was in danger of being swept past the cutter before he was seen. To attempt to turn meant the boat being caught broadside on and swamped. "Back all," ordered Villiers, gripping the tiller to prevent the rudder broaching to as the boat gathered sternway. The cutter backed almost half-way across the lagoon before Villiers gave the order to "give way". Then, gradually edging towards the swimmer, the boat, ably handled, came within an oar's length of the exhausted man. A few seconds of breathless suspense, then: "Got him!" yelled Swaine the bowman. At a cost of enough water to fill the cutter to the thwarts, the German was hauled into at least temporary safety, and while two men kept the boat head to wind and sea the others baled desperately, using canvas bucket and baler until most of the water was ejected. Once more the cutter approached the reef, the rowers straining desperately at their oars to recover the lost distance. "There's another of 'em off," shouted Jack, bawling to make himself heard above the roar of the breakers and the rush of the wind. A stout German, wearing a pair of canvas trousers only, cast off the ropes that secured him to the deck and leapt into the foaming water. In vain the cutter's crew looked for his reappearance. He was never seen again. The remaining four, deterred by the fate of their luckless comrade, held on. The _Titania's_ men, rowing frantically the while to keep the boat from being driven to leeward, watched them over their shoulders. Villiers realized that his crew were now almost played out. It looked as if it were a case of the triumph of matter over mind. The men were grimly determined to "stick it", but the ceaseless labour for the last hour at the oars was wearing them out. It was not straightforward rowing, but a constant tussle in confused breaking water and against a furious wind. The while the bow portion of the _Zug_ was breaking up fast. Alive to the latest danger, the four men, abandoning their position, took to the water. Three of these were picked up, the last not before the cutter had been backed to within half a cable's length of the beach.