'They'll all be here, sir,' shouted one of my crew; 'the port-davits are empty, and some'll have left in the boat.'

A great sea swung us up at that instant flush with the level of the bulwark-rails, with a heel of the barque that disclosed her decks bare to the bright fires of the signal.

'They must be all here!' I cried; 'but look well. Is there one among you who can catch any signs of a living man on board?'

They waited for the next upheaval of sea; then rose a shout: 'They're all here, sir, you'll find.'

'Heave ahead then, my lads!' by which I meant that they should haul upon the cable to drag the boat clear of the dreadful crushing, shearing chop of the overhanging bows of the barque.

At that instant a head showed over the rail a little abaft the fore-shrouds, and the clear, piercing voice of a boy cried, with as good an English accent as I myself have, 'My father is ill and helpless in the cabin. Do not leave us!'

'No, no, we'll not leave you,' I instantly shouted in return, sending my voice fair to the lad from the height of a sea that pretty well brought his and my head on a level. 'How many are there of you?'

'Two,' was the answer.

I had to wait for the boat to slide up to the summit of the next surge ere I could call out again. The black yawns betwixt us and the barque might have passed for valleys looked at from a hillside, so horribly hollow and deep were they; they were pale and yet dusky too, with sheets of foam; a soul-confounding noise of thunderous washing and seething rose up from them. When we were in one of those hollows the great mass of the dark fabric of the barque seemed to tower fifty feet above us, and we lay becalmed, hanging, while you might have counted five, in absolute stagnation, with the yell of the wind sweeping over our heads as though we were in the heart of a pit.

'Cannot your father help himself at all?' I bawled to the boy.

'He cannot stir; he must be lifted!' he answered in a shriek, for his high, clear, piercing cry thus sounded.

'By Heaven, then, lads,' I bawled to my men, 'there's no time to be lost! We must bundle the poor fellow over somehow, and help the lad. Nothing will have been done if we leave them behind us. Watch your chance and follow me, three of you!'

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