“Approaching the wreck, it was with terrible anxiety they strained their sight, trying to discover if there were still any men left in the tangled mass of rigging, over which the sea was breaking so furiously. By degrees they made them out. ‘I see a man’s head. Look! one is waving his arm.’—‘I make out two! three! why, the rigging is full of the poor fellows;’ and with a cheer of triumph, as being yet in time, the life-boat crew settled to their work.” Four hours they had been battling the elements, while the shipwrecked crew had waited eight hours despairingly, within a few miles of shore, shivering in the rigging. The sails were lowered, and anchor cast overboard. “No cheering! no shouting in the boat now, no whisper beyond the necessary orders; the risk and suspense are too terrible! Yard by yard the cable is cautiously paid out, and the great rolling seas are allowed to carry the boat, little by little, nearer to the vessel. The waves break over the boat, for the moment bury it, and then as the sea rushes on, and breaks upon the wreck, the spray, flying up, hides the men lashed to the rigging from the boatmen’s sight. They hoist up a corner of the sail to let the boat sheer in; all are ready; a huge wave lifts them. ‘Pay out the cable! sharp, men! sharp!’ the coxswain shouts; ‘belay all!’ The cable was let go a few yards by the run, and the boat is alongside the wreck. With a cry, three men jump into the boat and are saved! ‘All hands to the cable! haul in hand over hand, for your lives, men, quick!’ the coxswain cries; for he sees a tremendous wave rushing in swiftly upon them. They haul in the cable, draw the boat a little from the wreck, the wave passes and breaks over the vessel; if the life-boat had been alongside she would have been dashed against the wreck, and perhaps capsized, or washed over, and utterly destroyed. Again the men watch the waves, and as they see a few smaller ones approaching, let the cable run again, and get alongside; this time they are able to remain a little longer by the vessel; and, one after another, thirteen of the shipwrecked men unlash themselves from the rigging and jump into the boat, when again they draw away from the vessel in all haste, and avoid threatened destruction.” At last three Spaniards are left in the rigging; they seem nearly dead, and scarcely able to unlash themselves, and crawl down the shrouds. The boat must be placed dangerously near the vessel, and two of the life-boatmen must get on to the wreck and lift the men on board. They do it quietly, coolly, determinedly. The last one left is a poor little cabin-boy; he seems entangled in the rigging, and yet he holds fast to a canvas bag of trinkets and things he was taking as presents to the loved ones at home. “God only knows,” says Gilmore, “whether the loved ones at home were thinking of and praying for him, and whether it was in answer to their prayers and those of many others that the life-boat then rode