Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE AUGUSTE HERMANN FRANCKK A brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her Dashed all to pieces! Oh, the cry did knock Against my very heart I Poor souls! they perished. All day long April 20, 1886, it had been blowing a gale from the north-east, and a heavy sea was tumbling on the beach at Deal. On the evening of that stormy day I was making my way to the Boatmen's Rooms, at North Deal, where the boatmen were to assemble for the usual evening service held by the Missions to Seamen chaplain. On my way I met a boatman, a valued comrade on many a rough day in the mission-boat. Breathless with haste, he could at first only say, ' Come on, sir, quick! Come on: there's a man been seen running to and fro on the Goodwins!' Seeing that immediate help was needed, it appeared that the coxswain of the lifeboat proposed signalling a passing tug-boat, and wanted my sanction for the measure. Had she responded to the signal, she would have towed the lifeboat to the rescue of the mysteriousman on the Goodwins in an hour or so. As Hon. Secretary of the Lifeboat Branch, I at once authorised the step, and a flag was dipped from Deal pierhead, and blue lights were burned ; but all in vain. The tug-boat went on her way, taking no notice of the signals, which it is supposed she did not understand. It was plain some disaster had taken place, but what had happened on those gruesome sands I could only conjecture until I reached the Boatmen's Rooms. Outside the building I found in groups and knots a crowd of boatmen and pilots, and also Richard Roberts, the coxswain of the Deal lifeboat. Roberts had that evening, about five p.m., been taking a look at the Goodwins with his glass, a good old-fashioned 'spy-glass.' After a long steady search— ' Why,' said ...