The String of Pearls (1850), p. 720

sea as this. It is out of the questison. You find no one make the attempt, and I am quite sure that among the hardy fishermen of this place, there are many would do so if it were at all practicable; but it is most certain that death in the surf would be the result."
"I fear it would, indeed."
"There she goes!" cried a voice.
"Eh?" said Ben, turning round and round, "l don't see anybody in the female line."
"The ship!" cried Ingestrie. "They mean the ship. But she is not gone yet. There she is, still. Do you see her, colonel, like a tub upon the water?
There, right away, by yon light-coloured cloud."
"I do—I do!"
The ship had not gone down. She had only settled for a moment or two in the trough of the sea; and it was now quite evident that the wreck was rapidly drifting towards the shore, so that there was an expectation that it might strike in shallow water, and so give the crew a chance of escape from death.

CHAPTER CLXX.
MARK INGESTRIE RESCUES A SHIPWRECKED MAN.

The scene now upon the beach at Brighton was one of the most exciting that can well be imagined. No one who has not stood upon a beach under such circumstances, and seen a brave ship battling with the waters, can have any real idea of it.
Language is too weak to paint the feelings of such a conjunction of circumstances. It is so hopeless a thing to stand upon the shore, and listen to the wind roaring ia its fury, and to see the waves dashing in mad gyrations hither and thither, while a few frail and creaking timbers only keep some poor mortals from sinking into the sea, which, like a seathing cauldron, seems ready to devour them, that it is enough to unman the stoutest heart.
No wonder that persons with kindly sympathies and gentle feelings towards human nature, such as Colonel Jeffrey and Mark Ingestrie undoubtedly had, should suffer acutely to see others so suffer.
If there had been any likelihood cf a boat reaching the ill-fated ship, Ingestrie would have been the first to propose such a measure, and the first, with hand and heart, to carry it out ; but there was no such likelihood. Our friend had seen too much of service afloat, and was by far too good a sailor to suppose for an instant that any boat could live for a cable's length from the shore in such a sea as that!
"Is it quite impossible to aid them?" said the colonel.
"Quite," said Ingestrie, "unless they strike close in shore. Then, something may, perhaps, be done."
"Ay, sir," said a weather-beaten boatman who stood close to Ingestrie, "you are right there. If they only drift a little further in, and are still afloat, when the keel touches ground they may get ashore some of them."
"No boat," said the colonel, "could reach her?"
"Boat, sir ! My little bit of a craft will do now and then things that one ought not to expect, from anything in the shape of a boat; but that surf would toss it up like a piece of cork, and it would only be making bad worse to draw a few brave fellows from land here, because others are going down at sea."
"You are right," said Ingestrie. "Do you happen to know the craft out yonder?"