San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-05-26

f ~ Aa@ NAA1 NAAS
had started the cutter. Happily the
anchor had dropped where its grip was
good
They hove until the cable was up and
down. Mr.. Lewis, then spying two
long sweeps or oars, threw them over,
stationing two of the girls at one and
two at the other, and with his own
hands, with his coat off and straing
hard, broke out the little anchor.
snow pull" he roared; and the girk,
giving way, swept the cutter out right
athwart the delicate, soft blowing OF
the night air.
My friend clapped his hands with de-
light, and lifting the anchor clear Of
the water with a few revolutions Of
the windlsss, made all fast and sprang
to help at the oars. They pulled until
the shore was a good half-mile astern
Of them
Mr.. Lewis then mastheaded The fore
sail and hoisted the peak of the main
sail, setting the sail properly, and
went 10 the little tiller while the girls
still ground at the oars. But as soon
as he found the cutter under command,
drawing away from the sands and
holding her own, he requested the
young ladies to throw their oarein
They did so, painting, and gathered
about him with many signs of weak
ness and exhaustion in their manner.
He, too, as he told me, now that he
had been ~miraculously delivered, felt
half dead from exposure in the rigging
Of the brig, and from long-protracted.
keen distress of mind 1t was impos-
sible to distinguish faces, for now the
moon had westered and her light was
dull
The girls story was this Three Of
them were daughters Of an English
gentleman on a visit to Boulogne-sur-
mer; the fourth was a young French
lady, an intimate friend of the family.
The cutter belonged to the English
girls brother. Out of wantonness
and fred by the desire to be talked
about and looked at, the four young
ladies had agreed to sail the yacht
without help out of Boulogne harbor,
cruise awhile off the coast and then
return
They had sailed with their brother
and imagined that they knew how to
handle a boat. The French girl had
assured them that she could steer in
comparably well 1t is perfectly true
that she managed to navigate the cut
ter between the two piers without run
ming into either; but when they were
at sea and the breeze took them, the
young French lady lost her head, and
the English girls saw that she did not
know which way to put the helm ss
occasion required
They were blown ont to sea, but
their situation of distress was not
noticed on shore. They had no knowl-
edge of lacking; the breeze which had
come on hard when Mr.. Lewis was up
in the briggs mast blew dead off the
Boulogne coast The girls let go o
rope or two, and they also Let go the
helm, and the little cutter, sometimes
giving her stern to 1t and sometimes
her broadside, made as pretty a course
as could have been contrived by q
steersman with the help of o compass
card for the deadly Goodwin sands
This was the young ladies' story
and while they conversed with Mr..
Lewis, who in his turn related his w
experience, the day broke Nov they
could see one another.
The three English girls were pretty,
but their faces were pale, and wore as
complete expression of shipwreck as
though they had been brought ashore
in the lifeboat from a hideous scene of
storm and panic and drowning. The
French lady was paler still than the
English girls Their names-tla that
matters not.
Mr.. Lewis, giving che helm to- ne of
them to hold, descended into the cabin
to seek for refreshments, and found
biscuits, fruit and other triAing matter
in sufficient quantity tosSrovide them
all with a meal.
The yacht had come ashore ON tho
eastern side of the Goodwin sands and
as Mr.. Lewis proposed TO carry the
ladies to an English port-eitber Dover
Or Folkestone he kept the little vessel
on a westerly course parallel with the
long line of shoal.
Unfortunately the wind stacksned
and a dead calm foil; and to save the
yacht from drifting ashore Nh. Lewis
was forced to let go the anchor. When
this was done he half-masted a color,
hoping that the distress flag would be
seen across the sands at Deal or RAms-
gate.
They hay until the afternoon. IN q
dead calm, motionless at anchor, in all
of which time Mr.. Lewis sought to
keep up the spirits of the young ladies
by assuring them that there was no
danger, and by making them under
stand that even if their half-masted
flag were seen a boat would occupy a
long while in pulling round the south
ernmost limb of the shoal 10 get ct
them.
About four o'clock a vessel was Oh
served heading in their direction out of
the south She came along fast and
direct Mr.. Lewis, putting the cut
ter's telescope to his eye, told the la
dies that the vessel was a tug, and
that there were several people on her
bridge, and that he believed that she