In twenty minutes after filling away, we had reached the second mate’s boat. A look through the binoculars showed me that things were indeed in a bad way with them; there wasn’t a moment to lose. The boat seemed momentarily on the point of filling, while half a dozen men along her sides baled frantically with buckets and other utensils. A man in the stern sheets was waving wildly at us, as if to communicate some information. I had a notion what it was; they were trying to tell us that they wouldn’t be able to bring the boat into the wind. I saw that plainly. Captain Potter, coming hurriedly to the after end of the house, evidently saw it, too. "How will you pick them up, Captain?" he asked nervously. "I think we can do it without difficulty" I answered, as if such measures were a matter of course. In point of fact, I had never executed the manoeuvre that seemed necessary in this pass, and had never heard of its being tried by anyone else. As we approached the boat, I hauled the ship well out on their starboard quarter, passed them several hundred yards to port and left them a quarter of a mile astern; then swung the ship across their course, came up to leeward of them with a shock and a crash, backed the main yard, lost headway, and stopped in exactly the right position for them to fetch our stern as they ran before the wind. In other words, I cut a half circle around them and placed myself athwart their hawse, in the way of an old-fashioned naval manoeuvre. We looked down on them from the quarter-deck as they raced toward us. Several men seemed disabled, water was washing nearly up to her thwarts, but a few oars were poised in readiness, showing intelligence and discipline somewhere aboard. In a moment she was on the point of our weather quarter, sweeping past our stern. "Round the stern!" shouted Captain Potter and I together "Get under the lee, and jump for the main channels!" But they had already seized their last and only opportunity. A smooth patch on the water favoured them; they made the turn nicely, let go their sail, and succeeded in paddling up under our quarter. "Jump while it’s smooth!" I cried "Let the boat go" My crew had by this time become expert channelsmen. One of them caught the painter, others used their boathooks; and the last load of castaways from the steamer tumbled over the side, more dead than alive, but alive enough to know that they’d been saved. The painter was cast off, the boat drifted clear of the quarter, filled, overturned, and was whirled away on the top of a breaking sea. Safely on our decks, watching this symbol of elemental destruction, stood every soul of the steamer’s company. "I really must congratulate you again!" said Captain Potter heartily "That was a feat of seamanship, sir. You seem to be able to put your ship through the eye of a needle"