My body seemed to be bruised and aching all over; but, with this exception, I felt little or none the worse for my morning's adventure; I was very comfortable, but distinctly hungry; and I was lazily endeavouring to make up my mind whether I would go to the trouble of dressing, and hunting up a steward to find me something to eat, or whether I would remain where I was until somebody came to me, when the problem was solved by the opening of my cabin-door, and the entrance of the doctor. He advanced on tiptoe to the side of my bunk, and bent close over me, peering into my face to see whether I happened to be awake.

"What is the time, doctor?" I asked.

"Oh, so you are awake, eh?" he responded. "Well, how do you feel?"

"Sore and aching from head to foot, but otherwise all right—excepting that I am uncommonly hungry," I answered.

"Hungry, eh?" said Scudamore. "Let me feel your pulse."

He laid his fingers upon my wrist for a few seconds, and then said:

"Well, there doesn't seem to be very much the matter with you now; you have had a good, long, sound sleep—I have been in and out from time to time, just to see that you were going on all right—and a good dinner will not hurt you. Will you have it brought to you here, or would you rather turn out and dress?"

"Oh, I will turn out, of course!" I exclaimed.

"Very well, then," said the doctor, "I will send a steward to help you to dress—you will need a little assistance, with the ship cutting these wild capers—and if you do not dawdle too long over your toilet you will be just in good time for dinner. There goes the first bell," he added, as the strident clamour suddenly pealed out from somewhere on the deck above.

He left me, and presently my berth-room steward appeared with my shaving-water, and I scrambled—rather more feebly than I had expected— out of my bunk. The operation of dressing proved to be a considerably more lengthy one than I had anticipated, for I found that I was decidedly shaky on my legs, and I had to sit on the sofa and take a short rest at frequent intervals, with the result that the second dinner bell rang before I was ready to leave my cabin. I was not very late, however, arriving in the cuddy last, it is true, but in time to see my immediate predecessors just taking their seats. As I crossed the threshold of the brilliantly-lighted apartment, leaning upon the arm of the steward, the entire company rose to their feet; every eye was turned upon me; and suddenly General O'Brien shouted, in great excitement:

"Three cheers for our gallant friend Conyers! Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!"

The three cheers thus unexpectedly called for were enthusiastically given—even the ladies joining in—to my great confusion, and as I passed aft between the two tables everybody within reach must needs shake hands with me, and say something complimentary, until I felt so uncomfortable that I began to wish I had remained below. I noticed that Miss Onslow was on her feet, like the rest; but she appeared to have risen rather to avoid any appearance of singularity than with the intention of paying me a compliment; while the rest were almost boisterously enthusiastic she remained absolutely calm and devoid of the slightest sign of emotion, except that her cheeks and lips were colourless; a slight curl in her beautiful upper lip seemed to indicate a feeling of contempt for such an outburst of enthusiasm, and she steadfastly kept her gaze turned away from me, except for one brief fraction of a second, as I drew near to take my place beside her. Then, for the space of a lightning-flash, our glances met; and, if anything so inconceivable as a display of emotion on her part could be credited as within the range of possibility, I would almost have sworn that I caught in her eyes the flash of tears. But, the little ovation over, we all sat down; and as she at once began talking to the skipper about the gun mounted as a trophy in front of Government House, Calcutta, I had not an opportunity to verify my suspicion.

As we seated ourselves I gave vent to a sigh of relief, believing that— my fellow-travellers having expressed their approval of my behaviour of the morning—the affair was now at an end. But scarcely were we settled in our places when the French skipper's wife—a very charming little woman, who, with her husband, had been received into the cuddy by Dacre as his guests, and who had apparently failed to recognise me upon my entrance—learning from her neighbour what all the hubbub was about, must needs add to my confusion by rushing to me and throwing herself upon her knees, as she poured forth her expressions of gratitude with a mingled fervour and grace that I found particularly discomposing. Then her husband followed suit, thanking me with manly earnestness and heartiness for what I had done. This further act of homage, so publicly performed, disconcerted me to such an extent that I hastened to dismiss the embarrassingly grateful pair by assuring them that they were making altogether too much of what I had done, which was no more than any other man, confident of his swimming powers, would have unhesitatingly undertaken, had I not happened to have seized the initiative; that I was of course very glad it had fallen to me to be the means of saving their lives; but that I most earnestly begged them to say no more about it.

When dinner was over, General O'Brien joined me on deck, as I was smoking my pipe; and I seized the opportunity to thank him for the assistance he had rendered in the operation of securing my resuscitation. And I added:

"As I was recovering consciousness I heard the doctor make a remark to you to the effect that someone—I gathered that a lady was being referred to—seemed to be more than ordinarily concerned in the question of my recovery; and I understood from your reply that you perfectly understood to whom Scudamore alluded. Have you any objection to favouring me with the name of the individual?"

"Oh, so you heard that, did you?" remarked the general. "Well, my dear boy, it was not intended for you to hear, I am quite certain; Scudamore would not have made the remark had he been aware that you were sufficiently recovered to hear and understand it. As to my giving you the lady's name—well, I do not think I should be justified in doing so. The matter stands thus, you see. When Scudamore spoke, he and I were of opinion that we had accidentally discovered the entirely unsuspected existence of a more than ordinary interest in you on the part of a certain lady; but since then I have come to the conclusion that we mistook overpowering excitement for a more tender feeling; hence I do not consider that I ought to enlighten you at all. If any tender feeling exists, why, it is the girl's own secret, for her to retain or not as she pleases; and if she has such a feeling, and is willing that you should know it, depend upon it she will discover a method of enlightening you; while if she has no such feeling it would be the height of bad taste on my part to suggest that possibly she has. So please ask me no more about it, there's a good fellow."

Of course I at once and finally let the subject drop, but somehow I could not help thinking about it, and wondering which of my fellow-passengers was referred to, and for the next day or two I watched to see whether any one of them exhibited more than ordinary cordiality to me; but it was quite unavailing; all were alike exceedingly cordial and friendly—except Miss Onslow, who still maintained her former attitude of frigid reserve—so, as it was, after all, a matter that only very slightly interested me, I soon forgot all about it.

From this time forward, for a full month and more, life was absolutely uneventful on board the City of Cawnpore: the gale blew itself out that same night, and we got a breeze that carried us right into the north-east trades; then we lost five days on the Line parallels ere we caught the south-east trades; and when they left us we were baffled for two days more before getting a wind that would permit us to make any easting.

We caught this fair wind early one morning in the second week of December; and by noon it was blowing over the larboard quarter quite as strong as we wanted it, with studding-sails abroad on both sides, from the royals down, and every other inch of canvas that would draw. As the afternoon waned the breeze freshened; but Murgatroyd had by this time got preventer backstays rigged, fore and aft, with the avowed determination of carrying on and making the very utmost of so splendid a breeze. And making the most of it, he was, with a vengeance, for the ship was sweeping along like a mist wreath, reeling off her seventeen knots by the log, when the latter was hove at the end of the first dog-watch.

When I went on deck after dinner that night the sky had banked up to windward and astern of us, and heavy masses of cloud were sweeping rapidly athwart the firmament, permitting an occasional brief and hasty glimpse of the young moon and a few misty stars. It was then blowing strong, with every promise of a windy night before us; and it seemed to me that, with so dim and uncertain a light, it was scarcely prudent to drive the ship at such headlong speed through the night. Indeed I ventured to suggest as much to Dacre, but he only laughed at me.

"It is all very well for you navy men, when you are cruising, to shorten sail at sunset, so that your people may be reasonably sure of an undisturbed night," he said. "But with us of the red ensign it is different; our owners expect us to pile up the profits for them; and the only way in which we can do that is by making quick passages. But of course, while doing our best to accomplish this, we exercise every possible precaution. For instance, you seem to think that I am rather reckless in driving my ship at this speed through the night; but what have I to fear? We have all the sea-room we want; there are no rocks or shoals in our road for us to fetch up on; and if we should happen to fall in with any other vessels, they will be going the same way as ourselves, so we shall see them in ample time to avoid running over them. And, in addition to all this, we maintain a first-rate lookout, one on each bow, two in the waist, and the officer of the watch up here on the poop; so we need have no fear of collision. Take my word for it, Mr Conyers; you are every bit as safe aboard here, sir, as if you were under the pennant!"

After this, of course, there was nothing more to be said, especially as I was well aware that, in mentioning such a matter at all to the skipper, I had committed an almost unpardonable breach of nautical etiquette.

Notwithstanding the strong breeze the night was quite warm, for we were not very far south of the tropic of Capricorn, and, moreover, it was close upon the midsummer of the Southern Hemisphere; consequently when two bells of the first watch struck, a good many of the passengers were on deck, most of them listening to the miners, who were congregated on the main deck, singing. As for me, I was right aft, on the wheel grating, smoking, and staring skyward at the racing cloud masses as they swept scurrying athwart the face of the moon.

Suddenly a loud yell of dismay and warning arose from the topgallant forecastle, the only words I caught being, "—under our bows!"

The next instant, with a shock that shot me off the grating on to the poop, the ship was brought up all standing—not stopped dead as though she had run into a cliff, but rather as a horse stops when pulled up and thrown on his haunches—and then, as I lay on my back, half stunned by the shock of my fall, and still gazing skyward, I saw the three masts bow forward, bending like fishing-rods, when, with a dreadful rending crash, the entire complicated mechanism of sails, spars, and rigging went by the board, and lay fore and aft along the deck.

There was a moment's pause of utter silence, broken only by the hissing splash and rush of water alongside, and the moaning of the wind over the sea; and then arose the most terrific hubbub to which I had ever been doomed to listen—shrieks, groans, and curses from those injured by the fall of, or buried under, the wreckage from aloft; cries of "We're sinking! we're sinking! God help us!" people calling each other's names; and the voices of Captain Dacre and Mr Murgatroyd shouting orders. Then, all in a moment there arose among the miners a cry of "The boats! the boats! Let's launch the boats!" instantly followed by a rush of the whole crowd of them on to the poop, where as many as could swarmed into the two quarter boats hanging at the davits. These two boats would not hold much more than a quarter of their number, and the moment that this was discovered there arose a sanguinary fight for the possession of the two frail craft, those who were crowded out drawing their knives and attacking the other party. Then Murgatroyd suddenly appeared on the poop with a brace of revolvers in his hands, which he levelled at the fighting, surging mob.

"Come out of those boats, you cowardly blackguards; come out, I say, and stand by to obey orders! D'ye hear, there, what I say? You there with the red head, I'm talking to you: come out of that boat, or by God I'll shoot! You won't? Then take that,"—his pistol flashed as he spoke. "I'll soon see who is master here!"

The next instant the brave fellow was down on the deck, stabbed in a dozen places from behind, and the life kicked and trampled out of him by the fighting, panic-stricken crowd of miners, who were now simply beside themselves with terror, and practically as irresponsible as so many wild beasts.

At this juncture the skipper, with some half a dozen seamen to support him, arrived upon the scene from forward—where he had apparently rushed, at the first alarm, to investigate the condition of the ship; and, pressing his way into the heart of the howling, struggling mob, endeavoured to bring them to their senses by assuring them that there were boats enough for all, but that their only chance of being saved lay in allowing the sailors access to the tackles so that the boats might be properly launched. But before the poor fellow could get any further, he, too, went down and disappeared, amid shouts of "Our lives is as good as yours! We've got the boats, and we mean to keep 'em!" and so on. And, in the height of the confusion, someone cut the bow tackle of the larboard quarter boat, with the result that her bow suddenly dropped into the water while her stern still hung suspended from the davit, and every man of the crowd who had scrambled into her was instantly precipitated into the water.

While this was going on upon the poop, the entire crowd of cuddy passengers appeared to be huddled together about the companion, utterly helpless and bewildered, while a party of seamen were working desperately down on the main deck to get the four boats off the gallows. I could not see that anyone was doing anything to clear away the long boat; but that was probably because she had been destroyed by the fall of the mainmast, which appeared to have crashed right down on the top of her.

As for me, I did nothing; for the simple reason that there was nothing to be done; the ship was sinking fast—so fast, indeed, that she would probably plunge head first to the bottom in less than five minutes, which—taking into consideration the state of absolute panic that prevailed, and the inextricable raffle of wreckage that cumbered and filled the decks—would leave no time in which to construct even the rudest kind of raft. No, there seemed to be nothing for it but for all hands to go down with the ship, thanks to the terror-stricken selfishness of the 'tween-decks passengers, who were too ignorant to do anything useful themselves, and too obstinate and distrustful to allow anyone else to do anything. For myself, I had made up my mind not to give in and die so long as I could do anything to help myself; I was a good swimmer, and when the ship went down I should look out for a piece of wreckage, and cling to it until I was picked up by some passing ship, or perished of hunger and thirst.

Suddenly, as I was standing close to the binnacle, watching the frantic mob of fighting miners, a woman emerged from the after companion, close beside me. She glanced round for a moment, in terror at the conflict that was raging about the boats, and then, stepping quickly to my side, laid her hand upon my arm—I could see the gleam and glitter of gems upon it in the dim starlight—and said, in a voice which I at once recognised as that of Miss Onslow:

"Oh, Mr Conyers, what does all this mean? What has happened? Is the ship sinking? For pity's sake tell me?"

"Miss Onslow," said I, "summon all your courage to your aid, I beg you, for you will need it. I have the worst possible news to tell you. The ship is sinking fast—she will probably go down in another two or three minutes; and I think it doubtful in the extreme whether any one of us will survive to tell the tale!"

"O God!" she gasped. "My father—I am his only child—and this will kill him! Well, if it must be so, God's will be done!"

Not a word about herself, no outcry of natural fear at the near approach of the King of Terrors! It was of her father, and the heart-breaking sorrow that he would feel at her loss, that she thought at this dread moment! As this idea presented itself to me a world of admiration for such marvellous courage and unselfishness leapt into being within me, and, turning to her, I grasped the hand that still unconsciously rested upon my arm, and said:

"Miss Onslow, I have no hope to offer you; but if you are willing to trust yourself to me I will do my utmost to save you. At the worst we shall be no worse off than we are now."

"I will trust you," she said simply. "I will do whatever you tell me!"

There was no time to lose, for I could tell, by the feel of the ship, that her course was all but run; so, taking my companion by the hand, I led her right aft to the wheel grating, which we both mounted; and then I peered over the stern at the black water. Merciful Heaven, how near it was! it looked as though one could lean over the rail and dabble one's hand in it. But it was clear; there was no wreckage or anything else—so far as I could see—to hurt us, should we leap. A lifebuoy was hanging over the taffrail, suspended by a stout lanyard; and this buoy I hurriedly cut adrift, passing it over Miss Onslow's shoulders and up under her armpits. Then, having thus equipped her, I assisted her to mount the rail, and at once sprang up beside her, taking her hand in mine as I did so.

"Now, are you ready?" I asked.

"Quite!" she answered, as steadily as though I had been about to assist her to step ashore, instead of urging her to leap overboard in the middle of the South Atlantic, on a dark and windy night, with scarcely a hope that she would survive to see the next morning.

"Then jump!" I said; and at the word we both leapt together.



CHAPTER FIVE.

THE CITY OF CAWNPORE'S QUARTER BOAT.

The height of the poop rail from the surface of the water had by this time grown so insignificant, by reason of the depth to which the hull of the ship had become immersed, that upon striking the water I only descended about a foot below the surface, ere rising again; while my companion was so effectually supported by the lifebuoy that she remained quite dry above the shoulders. The water was not at all cold, indeed it was of quite a pleasant temperature, so I anticipated no discomfort on that account, either for my companion or myself. Now—that we were actually overboard my first anxiety was to place as great a distance as possible between ourselves and the sinking ship, so that we might perchance escape being dragged down by her when she should founder. I therefore at once thrust my left arm through one of the beckets of the lifebuoy, and struck out with all my strength away from the ship, swimming athwart the sea, so that it might not break in our faces, and towing my companion after me. I contrived to place a distance of about a hundred fathoms between us and the ship before she disappeared—which was very considerably more than I had dared to hope for when we jumped overboard—and although this did not carry us quite clear of the vortex created by the sinking ship, it carried us so far away that we were only dragged back somewhat toward the centre, without being taken under. I swam for another ten minutes, and then, deeming that we were so far distant as to be free from all danger of injury by the rising of floating wreckage under us, it seemed advisable to heave-to and husband my strength a little, since I could not tell to what extent it might be taxed in the immediate future. As to my companion, she was put to no exertion whatever, the lifebuoy supporting her perfectly; and when I inquired as to her welfare she informed me that she felt quite as comfortable and as much at ease as could be reasonably expected under the circumstances.

I allowed a quarter of an hour—as nearly as I could guess it—to elapse after the disappearance of the ship; and then, believing that whatever wreckage was likely to float up from her to the surface would already have done so, I thought we might safely return to the scene of the catastrophe, since it was upon the existence of a certain amount of floating wreckage that I built such slight hope as I entertained of our ultimate preservation. I knew pretty exactly the bearings of the spot where the ship had gone down—having taken them by the moon—and, thus guided, I struck out over the way that we had recently travelled, towing Miss Onslow after me; and as I swam I could not help a feeling of surprise at the height of the sea, which seemed mountainous, now that we were down upon its surface, although from the deck of the ship it had appeared nothing at all extraordinary. I had been swimming some five minutes or so when, as we floated up on the breast of a wave, I saw in the dim moonlight what looked like a quantity of loose, floating wreckage at no very great distance away, but slightly to windward; and toward this we made the best of our way, ultimately arriving in the midst of a quantity of loose, jagged, and splintered planking tangled up with a raffle of spars, sails, and rigging. It was rather dangerous stuff to venture among, as some of the loose planks were lancing about in the wash of the sea with considerable violence, and a blow from a jagged end would have inflicted a more or less serious injury, even had it not killed us outright; but at length I found a little clear space among the wreckage, into which I towed my companion, and presently we found ourselves close alongside one of the masts, with the after-rim of the top riding dry; and on to this I at once climbed, hauling Miss Onslow after me, and lashing her securely to the top by means of an end of rope cut from among the raffle. Here we were reasonably safe and comfortable, for we were upon a raft of buoyant material that would probably float for months, while there was so much of it that it effectually broke the sea and prevented it from washing over us. It was a terrible situation for such a delicately-nurtured girl as she who had so unexpectedly been thrown under my protecting care; but throughout the night she never uttered a single word that could be construed into complaint; nor did she evince the slightest fear; on the contrary, she exhibited a calm and steadfast courage that filled me with admiration, although the questions that she put to me from time to time rendered it perfectly clear that she very fully realised the desperate nature of our predicament.

Some time during the night—it would probably be about midnight—the wind dropped to a light breeze, and the sea began to go down, until by daylight there was only a very gentle air blowing, with very little sea, but a long, heavy swell; the clouds all went drifting away out of sight, leaving the sky clear; and there was, generally, a very promising prospect that the coming day would be fine.

The moment that it was light enough to see, I scrambled up on the wreckage and took a long look round, in the hope of descrying a sail, but the horizon was bare. Then, as the light grew stronger, I proceeded to minutely inspect the mass of wreckage that had afforded us shelter throughout the night, with the view of ascertaining its capabilities as a refuge for a more or less lengthy period—until, in fact, we were either taken off by a passing ship, or perished of starvation. There seemed to be a great deal of it—much more than I could satisfactorily account for—but as the dawn spread and brightened, and objects grew increasingly distinct, everything became intelligible, even to the cause of the catastrophe that had so suddenly and terribly hurled us from a situation of safety and comfort into one of the direst peril and uncertainty. For I found that while my companion and I were clinging to the wreckage of the ill-fated City of Cawnpore's mainmast—the whole of which had somehow come adrift from the hull—we were surrounded by and tangled up with a large quantity of planking and woodwork, some of which we recognised as having belonged to our own ship, while the remainder resolved itself into the shattered hull of a large, timber-laden, wooden ship which had been cut nearly half through by the tremendous impact of our own vessel upon it when she struck it and so destroyed herself in the darkness of the preceding night. A minute inspection of this wreck enabled me to clearly understand exactly what had happened: the stranger had been dismasted—for her spars were still attached to her hull—and had, at the same time, or subsequently, become water-logged to such an extent as to submerge her hull nearly to the level of the deck; her crew had abandoned her; and she had been left washing about, a scarcely visible yet truly formidable death-trap, for our own good ship to blunder upon to her destruction. The force of the blow had turned the stranger nearly bottom up, so I could not even make a guess at her nationality, and, worse still, it had robbed us of a possible chance of slightly bettering our condition by taking up our quarters aboard her.

In addition to the mass that my hapless companion and I had taken refuge upon there were a few small quantities of detached wreckage floating here and there within a radius of about a quarter of a mile, and among these I by and by noticed something that looked so much like a capsized boat that—as there seemed to be no sharks about—I determined to swim out and examine it. I mentioned my resolution to Miss Onslow, who made no demur whatever to being left alone for a time, merely remarking, with a somewhat wan smile:

"If it should by good fortune prove to be a boat, please do not, in your elation, sail away, forgetting that you have left me behind."

I assured her that she might absolutely depend upon my never forgetting that I had undertaken to save her, and therewith plunged into the warm sea.

Swimming a long, steady stroke, it did not take me very long to reach the object for which I was aiming, and which proved, as I had conjectured, to be a ship's boat, swamped, and floating keel up. And not only so, but when I got alongside her I was delighted to find that she was one of the City of Cawnpore's quarter boats—no doubt the one that the miners had cut partially adrift ere the ship went down—the especial significance and importance of this discovery arising from the fact that poor Dacre had made a point of having every item of each boat's equipment stowed within her, and properly secured; so that, unless something very untoward had happened, it was reasonable to hope that I should find this craft thus furnished. And, sure enough, she appeared to be so, when I at length managed to right her, for, as she rolled over, I caught sight of the oars, masts, and sails—the latter neatly encased in canvas coats—all securely lashed to the thwarts. Without waiting to further investigate, I got hold of her by the stern and, hanging on by one hand, proceeded to scoop the water out of her with the other. This was a long job, considerably more than an hour being spent in removing the comparatively small quantity of water necessary to enable me to get into her; but, once in her, I made much better progress, using my two hands to throw the water out, until— having got rid of sufficient to enable me to move about without again filling the boat—I managed to find a baler, when I made short work of baling her dry. This done, I took stock of my prize, and found that I had come into possession of a twenty-eight-foot gig, in a perfectly sound and undamaged condition, equipped with four sixteen-foot ash oars, a mast and sails, rowlocks, bottom-boards, stretchers, rudder and yoke, baler, boat-hook, and—priceless treasure, under the circumstances—two breakers of fresh water securely lashed to the bottom-boards to serve as ballast. With such a prize as this what might not be possible? With a thankful heart I cast adrift the oars, shipped a pair, and—standing up fisherman fashion, with my face toward the bow—paddled the boat to the pile of wreckage whereon I had left Miss Onslow.

The sea had by this time gone down to such an extent that I had no difficulty in putting the boat alongside the wreckage, taking the young lady on board, and shoving clear again without damaging the boat in the least. My clothes were by this time quite dry, and those of my companion nearly so; we were therefore, comparatively speaking, comfortable, excepting that we were both sensible of the possession of a most healthy and hearty appetite, which we had no means of satisfying. A casual remark by Miss Onslow upon this unpleasant feature of our adventure set me thinking, with the result that before leaving our mass of wreckage for good, I secured the signal halliards—to serve as a fishing-line—together with a fair supply of other small cordage, the main-royal—which I cut away from the wreckage to serve as a sort of tent, to shelter my companion from the dew at night-time—and a small spike nail or two, which, with considerable labour, I cut out of the planking of the derelict that had brought disaster upon us. These last I secured with the rather hazy idea that it might be possible for me to file them down and convert them into fish-hooks with the aid of a small file that formed one of the implements in my pocket-knife. Thus provided, I shipped the boat's rudder and yoke, stepped the mast, set the sails, and shoved off, my intention being to shape a course—as nearly as I could hit it off—for Cape Town, in the hope that ere long we might be fallen in with and picked up by some craft bound thither. The boat, however, had scarcely begun to gather way when I espied, at no very great distance, what I took to be a floating hencoop; and realising that, if my conjecture happened to be correct, the coop would probably be found to contain drowned poultry that, in our desperate situation, would serve for food, I headed the boat for it. My surmise again proved to be well founded; the object turned out to be a coop, and it contained seventeen dead fowls, the whole of which I secured. And in gaining possession of the poultry I found it necessary to break away two or three of the slats or bars that formed the front of the coop, thus discovering that they were secured to the body of the coop by long, thin, wire nails, out of which I soon satisfied myself that I could make very promising fish-hooks by merely bending them into the requisite shape, I secured about a dozen of these nails; and then made sail with a fair wind upon an approximately due east course. Although the wind was light the boat slipped through the water at a very satisfactory pace; and in half an hour's time we had run the wreckage completely out of sight.

During the progress of the foregoing operations my companion had been very quiet, looking on with an air of interest at everything I did, and occasionally volunteering her assistance where she seemed to think she might possibly be able to make herself useful, but otherwise saying little. Now, however, that we had once more settled down into a condition of comparative inactivity she began to question me as to our whereabouts, what were my intentions, and so on; all of which questions I replied to as accurately as I could. Then, after meditating for several minutes, she said:

"And what do you think are our chances of escape, Mr Conyers? Do you consider that they are favourable enough to justify you in taking so very much trouble?"

"Ah," answered I, "if you had asked me that question last night, when we jumped overboard together from the sinking ship, I should probably have found some difficulty in answering you at once hopefully and truthfully; for, as a matter of fact, I may now tell you that I really had no hope, and that, in acting as I did, I was merely obeying that instinct that urges us all to fight for life so long as we have any fight left in us. But now that we have come into possession of this fine and well-equipped boat I can honestly say that I consider our chance of ultimate escape is excellent. Of course everything depends upon the weather: if a gale were to spring up, the boat would probably be swamped or capsized by the heavy sea that would quickly rise—although even under such adverse conditions as those of a gale I should bring all my sailorly training and knowledge to bear on the task of preserving the boat as long as possible. But if Providence will only favour us with fine weather for, say, a week, I have scarcely a shadow of doubt that within that time we shall be fallen in with and picked up by a craft of some sort. For you must understand that we are right in the track of ships bound round the Cape; and those vessels are now so many in number that, making a rough guess, I should be inclined to say that an average of at least one vessel per day must pass within a few miles of this spot. Of course it may happen that several days will pass without a single craft of any kind coming along, but, to maintain the average, it is equally likely that three or four may pass in the course of a dozen hours. So you see our chance of being rescued is fairly good."

"Yes. But," she objected, "suppose it were unfortunately to happen that several days—say seven or eight—were to elapse without our seeing a sail; and that, afterwards, such ships as we might see were to pass us at such a long distance that although they would be perfectly visible to us, we should be quite invisible to them: What then?"

"In that case," said I, "there would be but one course open to us: we should simply be obliged to keep sailing on until a ship approached us near enough to see us, taking every care of ourselves meanwhile, and omitting no opportunity to procure such means of supporting life as the ocean has to offer us. And that reminds me that neither food nor drink has passed our lips since dinner, last night: I know you are hungry, because you said so some time ago; and, as for me, I am famishing. The food at our disposal is not particularly inviting—simply raw chicken and cold water—but it is at least fresh, and I think we ought to make the most of it while it is in that condition."

Miss Onslow's appetite was not, however, as yet quite keen enough to admit of her partaking of raw fowl; but she drank a little water out of the baler—the only utensil we possessed. As she returned the baler to me she remarked:

"You must not allow my squeamishness to be a bar to the satisfaction of your own appetite, if you feel hungry enough to eat raw flesh. I have been told that sailors are so often reduced to desperate straits that they eventually become reconciled to the idea of eating almost anything, and are consequently, as a rule, much less fastidious than such pampered mortals as myself. Moreover, you must not forget that it is of the last importance that your strength should be maintained—for your own sake, and for mine as well—if it is not too presumptuous of me to say such a thing—therefore please make a meal, if you can. And, although I fully realise how absolutely dependent upon you I am, I should like you to understand that I do not mean to be a mere helpless burden to you, if it can be avoided. I am perhaps not physically strong enough to be of much assistance to you; but in all cases where skill rather than great bodily strength is required I hope you will unhesitatingly make use of me. For instance, you are hungry; but you cannot make even such slight preparation of your food as is possible, because you are steering the boat. Again, you will soon need rest, but you will be unable to take it unless I am able to steer the boat in your stead. Therefore please teach me forthwith how to manage the boat, so that I may be able to 'relieve' you—as I think you sailors call it—from time to time, as may prove necessary."

And this was the girl who, while on board ship, had hedged herself in and kept us all at arm's-length by a barrier of such chill and haughty reserve as had at times approached very nearly to insolence!

Of course I eagerly accepted her offer—for I foresaw that a time would very soon arrive when her assistance would be indispensable—and at once proceeded to initiate her into the art of steering. Unfortunately, we were running dead before the wind at the time—which is the most difficult point of sailing for a novice to master—yet my new pupil seemed to grasp the idea at once and without an effort; and a quarter of an hour later she was watching the run of the sea and checking the tendency of the boat to round-to almost as knowingly and cleverly as though she had been sailing a boat all her lifetime.

The moment that I found she could be trusted alone I took up a position on the midship thwart and, selecting the best-looking fowl from our stock, proceeded to pluck and draw it, afterwards giving it a good wash in the salt water alongside. This done, I cut off a leg and, having skinned it, sliced off a small piece of flesh which, with many misgivings, I placed in my mouth and began dubiously to masticate. The idea of devouring raw flesh seemed to me to be exceedingly repulsive and disgusting, but it was either that or nothing, and, realising the full truth of Miss Onslow's remark upon the importance of maintaining my strength, I persevered. And presently, when I had conquered in some measure the natural repugnance excited by the idea of such food, I found that really, after all, it was very much a matter of sentiment, and that, so far as the flavour was concerned, there was nothing at all objectionable. The taste was of course novel, and peculiar, but I thought it possible that one might accustom oneself to it without much difficulty. Yet, just at first, a little sufficed, and when I had despatched one leg I considered that I had made a particularly hearty meal. And I felt so much the better for it that I strove to induce Miss Onslow to try a morsel. She gently reiterated her refusal, however, while expressing her satisfaction that I had been able to eat. Then, noticing that her eyes looked heavy, and that her movements were languid, I arranged the royal as a sort of couch in the stern-sheets for her, and suggested that she should lie down and endeavour to secure some rest; to which suggestion she acceded; and in a few minutes, completely worn out with the unaccustomed excitement, fatigue, and exposure through which she had so recently passed, she was sleeping by my side as placidly as an infant.

The sun was sinking into a bank of smoky-looking cloud that stretched along the horizon on our starboard quarter when my companion awoke, greatly refreshed by her slumbers, but—as she confessed—ravenously hungry. I also was beginning to feel anew the pangs of hunger; so, surrendering the yoke-lines to Miss Onslow, I took advantage of what remained of the fast-waning daylight to prepare a further portion of raw fowl to serve us both, taking care to render the appearance of the flesh as little repulsive as possible. By the time that my preparations— which I had purposely somewhat protracted—were complete, darkness had so far closed down upon us that it was scarcely possible to see what we were eating; and, thus aided, and by dint of much persuasion— accentuated by a reminder that we habitually ate oysters raw,—I succeeded in inducing the poor girl to so far lay aside her prejudices as just to taste the food I offered her. That accomplished, I had no further trouble with her, for her hunger was by this time so sharp that food of any sort became palatable, and we both succeeded in making a fairly good meal.

Meanwhile, the bank of cloud that at sunset had been hovering on the verge of the western horizon, had been stealthily creeping zenith-ward, and at the same time spreading out north and south, with a look in it that seemed to portend more wind; so, as a measure of precaution, I went to work, upon the conclusion of our meal, and shortened sail by taking down a couple of reefs in the mainsail, and a single reef in the little stay foresail which the boat carried. And, this done, I rearranged the royal in the stern-sheets as a bed for my companion, urging her to turn in at once and get as much rest as she could.

It was exceedingly fortunate that I had taken the precaution to reef the canvas of our small hooker; for about an hour or so after sunset—very shortly, indeed, after the completion of my preparations—the wind freshened up with quite a touch of spite in it, driving us along at a speed of fully eight knots, and tugging at the mast as though intent on dragging it out of the boat altogether; the sea, moreover, began to rise and break, and by midnight I was in a bath of perspiration induced by anxiety and the effort to keep the boat ahead of and square end-on to the combers. This condition of excessive and painful anxiety, by the way, was quite a new, as well as decidedly unpleasant, experience for me, and I was deeply mortified and annoyed at the discovery of its influence upon me. I first took myself severely to task about it, and then proceeded to seek for the cause of the trouble. I was at first disposed to attribute it to nerve-shock, induced by the occurrences of the preceding twenty-four hours, but a further analysis of my feelings convinced me that my nerves were still to be depended upon as implicitly as ever, and that the real source of my distress lay at my feet, asleep, wrapped up in a sail. Yes; there could be no doubt about it; it was on my companion's account that I was nervous and anxious; I feared being capsized or swamped simply because of the greatly-increased danger and discomfort that would in that case accrue to her!

At length—probably about two o'clock in the morning—it breezed up so fiercely, and knocked up such a sea that I dared not run the boat any longer, so, watching my chance, I put the helm down and hove-to on the larboard tack, with the boat's head to the northward, and anxiously awaited the coming of daylight. Soon after this, Miss Onslow awoke, and seemed considerably alarmed at the change in the weather and the wild movements of the boat; but I managed to reassure her; and then, observing that I had lashed the port yoke-line, and was no longer doing anything, she suggested that we should change places, and that I should get a little sleep! After my assurances as to the utter absence of any danger I found it somewhat difficult to make her understand—without alarming her—that it was still as urgently necessary as ever for me to watch the boat.

At length the dawn came filtering slowly through a murky and rather angry-looking sky, and as the darkness gradually melted away from off the face of the weltering waters I made out the canvas of a large ship, some eight miles off, to leeward. She had passed us about an hour earlier, probably not more than three miles away; and had there only been daylight I should doubtless have succeeded in attracting her attention. As it was, there was no hope of any such thing now; she was sailing away from instead of toward us, and sailors seldom look astern; their attention is mostly directed to what lies ahead. And even had it been otherwise, it was too late now to think of making ourselves seen; she was too far off; and chasing her was quite out of the question, for she was bowling along under topgallant studding-sails, making the utmost of a fair wind, while we dared show no more than double-reefed canvas. Fortunately, Miss Onslow was sleeping again, and did not see the stranger, which had run out of sight beyond the horizon by the time that my companion next awoke, so I did not mention the circumstance. The appearance of this vessel, however, was cheering and encouraging, inasmuch as it tended to show that I was still in the track of shipping.

As the day wore slowly on the wind steadily freshened until it was blowing a single-reefed topsail breeze, that brought with it a corresponding increase in the height and run of the seas, which at length became so dangerous that I dared no longer keep the boat under sail, but was constrained to douse the canvas and use it, with the mast and oars, as a floating anchor for the boat. Riding to these, at the full scope of our rather long painter, we were much more easy and comfortable; but this advantage was discounted to a great extent by the fact that during the day two other vessels passed us—at too great a distance to allow of our attracting their attention, low down in the water as we were, and with no means of signalling to them, yet not so far off but that we might have been seen had there been a pair of sharp eyes aboard; while if it had been possible for us to carry sail, we might have easily intercepted either of them. It was a cruelly bitter disappointment to us to see these two craft go sliding along the horizon while I wore myself out with unavailing efforts to attract their attention. My companion bore her disappointment bravely; she even chid me gently when I sank down exhausted into the bottom of the boat, with a bitter curse upon the blindness of the crew, as the second of the two ships vanished beyond the rim of the horizon; and she reminded me more than once of words I had spoken to her earlier in the day, to the effect that although we might miss half a dozen ships through their passing us at too great a distance to allow of our being seen, the seventh would be sure to come booming right down upon us, and our only difficulty would be to avoid being run down by her. But later on, when the darkness had once more closed down upon us, shutting out everything but the towering, swooping, phosphorescent crests of the threatening seas, I caught her softly, silently, and secretly crying; and the sight of her distress aroused a sudden furious anger in me that caused me to again and still more savagely execrate the blind lookout kept aboard the vessels that had that day passed us. And then I began to wonder, bitterly, how many poor souls—weak, helpless, delicate women and children, and famine-stricken men—had perished miserably, after drifting about the ocean for days that were veritable eternities of suffering, yet might have been rescued had the officer of the watch aboard a passing ship but bestowed a trifle more interest and attention upon the small, distant, indistinctly-seen object that for an instant caught his gaze, and which he all too hastily assumed to be the slanting pinion of some wandering sea bird, or the leaping crest of a distant wave.

We rode thus all through the night, and well on toward noon the next day, when the weather moderated sufficiently to permit me to make sail once more. But as the day wore on the wind gradually hauled round until it was dead on end for us; and nightfall found us heading to the southward, with the wind out at about east-south-east.

This state of things prevailed for the next four days, during which no further vessels were sighted, although it is possible that some may have passed us during the night at such a distance as to be invisible in the darkness. During this time we were put to great straits for want of food, and suffered all the tortures of slow starvation; for the drowned poultry soon putrefied and became so offensive that we had to heave them overboard. I tried to supply the deficiency by fishing, but only succeeded in capturing one small shark, about eighteen inches long, which was fortunately hooked in the mouth in such a way that he could not cut through the line with his teeth. During this time I watched and steered the boat all through the night; Miss Onslow relieving me during the hours of daylight, in order that I might secure a few hours of much-needed rest. But I was far too anxious, as well as in too much suffering, to sleep; the utmost that I could achieve was to doze fitfully and for a few minutes at a time, during which my imagination conjured up the most tormenting dreams, from which I usually awoke with a violent start and a terrified cry. Then I would spring upon a thwart and search the horizon eagerly and feverishly for the sight of a sail, following this up with a renewed attempt to catch a fish or two. I shall never forget the courage and fortitude exhibited by Miss Onslow during this trying period; she never uttered a single word of complaint or impatience, although it was impossible for her to conceal the fact that she suffered acutely; and whenever she found me unusually silent and, as she thought, giving way to dejection, she always had ready a word or two of encouragement.

Thus matters wearily and painfully progressed with us until six days and seven nights had dragged their slow length away, and a full week had elapsed since the sinking of the City of Cawnpore. We were still working our way to the southward, against an amount of wind and sea that were quite as much as the boat could look at; and Miss Onslow was at my feet, wrapped up in the sail, and moaning in her troubled sleep; the hour being about one o'clock in the morning. I was of course always on the lookout for a ship, night and day, but the time had now arrived when I began to see craft that had no existence save in my disordered imagination; I was therefore neither surprised nor elated when I suddenly became aware of a vague, indefinite shadow of deeper darkness, faintly and doubtfully showing against the horizon broad on my weather bow; I simply regarded it as another phantom, and thought no more about it. Yet I kept my gaze fixed upon it, nevertheless—since. I had nothing better to occupy my attention; and presently a peculiarity of this vision—not shared by the others I had seen—forced itself upon my notice, inasmuch as that, while the other phantom ships that I had seen had exhibited a propensity to rush over the surface of the ocean at lightning speed, and to appear in half a dozen quarters or more in as many seconds, this one obstinately persisted in maintaining the precise position in which I had at first discovered her. And it presently dawned upon me that she had another peculiarity, namely, that of an opacity sufficiently dense to temporarily blot out any low-lying star that the movement of the boat happened to bring into line with her. The full significance of these peculiarities at length became suggestive, and it began to dawn upon me that possibly the craft out yonder might not, after all, be a phantom; she might be the vessel destined to afford us rescue and salvation; the vessel for which I had all along been looking, and the eventual appearance of which I had so frequently and so confidently predicted to Miss Onslow.



CHAPTER SIX.

THE DERELICT.

The mere possibility that rescue might actually be at hand acted as a tonic upon me, imparting renewed life and hope, and clearing away the more than half-delirious fancies that had clouded and bemuddled my brain; thus enabling me once more to think and act rationally. I pulled myself resolutely together, collected my wandering wits, and peered long and anxiously at the shadowy shape that had, as it were, crystallised out of the surrounding darkness; then I looked away from it toward other points of the horizon to see whether it repeated itself elsewhere. No; it was peculiar to one definite spot; and I no longer had any doubt but that there was a certain tangible something, which could only be a ship, and that I must quickly determine upon the steps necessary to intercept her.

The first thing was to ascertain in what direction she was steering. When I first discovered her she was dead to windward, and since then she had drawn aft a trifle, being now about two points before my weather beam. She could not have overtaken me, because in that case she would have passed so close as to have all but run over the boat, and I could not have failed to see her; and the fact that she had slowly and imperceptibly grown up out of the darkness argued that she was not sailing away from me. Nor could she be sailing toward me, because in that case she would have grown in size and distinctness much more rapidly than she had done. Nor, strangely enough, did she seem to be crossing my course in either direction, the slight change in her bearings being accounted for by the progress of the boat. Possibly she might be hove-to; although it was difficult to imagine why she should be so, unless she had lost a man overboard. But if that were the case she would be showing lights as a guide to her boat, which ought not to be very far away. And why so deadly silent? I could not understand it. But as these ideas flitted through my mind I came to the conclusion that the correct thing to do was to close with her as quickly as possible by making short tacks toward her. So I put down my helm and hove the boat round upon the starboard tack, bringing the vague, black shadow about two points on the weather bow. The flapping of the sails while the boat was in stays awoke my companion, who sat up and, in a weak and husky voice, asked me what was the matter.

"Nothing," I answered; "at least nothing of an alarming nature. The fact is that I fancy I can see something, away out there on the weather bow, and I have tacked the boat for the purpose of investigating the object more closely."

"Whereabout is this object of which you speak?" she asked.

I pointed it out to her, and she almost immediately saw it. "Do you imagine it to be a ship, Mr Conyers?" she inquired.

"I know not what else it can be," said I. "But," I added, "we must not be too sanguine of help or rescue just yet. There are one or two points in connection with that object that make me doubtful as to its being a ship."

"What are they?" she quickly demanded.

I told her that one was the apparent immobility of the object; the other being the fact that no lights were being displayed. And I explained that the two together seemed incompatible with the supposition that the object ahead was a ship, repeating to her, indeed, the arguments that had flitted through my own mind only a few minutes before.

Yet with every fathom that the boat advanced, the shadow grew more palpable, expanded, and approximated more closely to the appearance of a vessel hove-to under bare poles. And at length, after several anxious minutes of alternating hope and doubt, there arrived a moment when doubt became no longer possible, for the shadow had finally resolved itself into the silhouette of a brig under bare poles; even the thin lines of the masts—which, by the way, looked stumpy, as though her topgallant-masts were gone—were perceptible to my practised eye.

Without pausing to puzzle out a possible reason for the singular condition of the vessel, I hastily resigned the yoke-lines to Miss Onslow and, springing upon the mast thwart, proceeded to hail the brig at the full power of my lungs, my delight at once more seeing a vessel so close at hand being coupled with a deadly anxiety lest she should suddenly make sail and get away from me. But to all my hailing there came no reply, nor was a light shown, or any other indication vouchsafed that my cries had been heard, even though I continued them until the boat was actually crossing the stern of the stranger at a distance of barely fifty fathoms. There was only one inference to be drawn from this strange silence, namely, that the brig was derelict, a surmise that was borne out by the fact that her boats appeared to be gone. Yet I could not detect any sign that anything was wrong with her; she was not sitting particularly deep in the water—so far as I could judge in the darkness—nor did her spars appear to be damaged, except that, as I have already mentioned, her topgallant-masts seemed to have been carried away; there appeared, therefore, to be no reason why we should not venture alongside; and accordingly, as soon as we had stood on far enough to fetch her on the next tack, I hove the boat round and—the brig happening to lie broadside-on to the sea—ran her alongside to leeward, dousing my sails as we came up abreast the stranger's lee quarter. As we shot up alongside I found that the vessel was certainly deeper in the water than I had at first imagined her to be, yet not deeper than might be accounted for by her carrying a heavy cargo; her covering-board seemed to be about eighteen inches above the water, and I therefore had no difficulty in clambering in over her bulwarks from the gunwale of the boat, of course taking care to carry the end of the boat's painter on board with me. Making this securely fast to a cleat in the bulwarks, I glanced fore and aft to see whether I could discover any indication of the presence of human beings on board; but the deck appeared to be deserted; no gleam of light showed either forward or aft; and no sound broke the silence save the wash of the water along the bends, the choking gurgle of the scuppers, and the monotonous jerk-jerk of the spanker-boom at its sheet with the roll of the ship. Under these circumstances I considered that my companion might safely venture aboard, and I accordingly assisted her up the side and in on deck, afterwards dropping the boat astern and carefully securing her by her painter. This done, I conducted Miss Onslow aft to the cabin companion—which was fitted with seat-lockers on each side—begged her to be seated for a short time while I investigated further; and forthwith plunged below.

Arrived at the foot of the companion ladder, I found myself confronted by a bulkhead running athwart the ship, and in this I presently found the handle of a door. Turning this, I found myself—as I had expected— in the cabin, which was of course pitch dark, the panes of the skylight just dimly showing, overhead, with the merest suggestion of a certain faintly—gleaming something hanging from the beams, and swinging with the roll of the ship, which I presently identified as the extinguished cabin lamp. Groping cautiously with my hands, I presently encountered a table, uncovered, working round which I next came to some lockers upholstered in horsehair—as I gathered from the touch; and while I was groping about on these lockers my hands suddenly encountered what seemed to be a tablecloth, with a few knives and forks, some broken crockery, and a few other matters entangled in its folds, the whole suggesting the idea that the cabin had been the scene of a furious struggle, during which the table, laid for a meal, had been swept of everything upon it. Leaving all this quite undisturbed—in the belief that when I could see just how it all lay I might obtain a clue to the mystery at present connected with the ship—I continued my researches, with the result that I made out the cabin to occupy the extreme after-end of the vessel, with possibly a small sail-room, or something of that kind, abaft it, and that it took up the whole width of that part of the hull; that is to say, there were no staterooms between it and the ship's side, as is sometimes the case. Continuing to grope my way round the cabin, I presently arrived once more at the bulkhead, wherein, on the starboard side, I found another door, giving access to a stateroom, as I soon discovered by finding the bunk, with the bedding still in it, and apparently quite ready for an occupant. It did not take me long to arrive at the conclusion that I was in the skipper's stateroom; for I found that underneath the bunk was a chest of drawers; while in one corner was a wash-basin, etcetera, and in the other what seemed to be a small bookcase. Having progressed thus far, I had hopes of soon finding that of which I was in search, namely, a box of matches. Being a sailor, and well acquainted with sailors' ways, I knew exactly where would be the most likely place to find what I wanted, and, clambering up on the bunk, I felt for the shelf that I knew ought to be at the head of it. Yes, there it was; but as I felt along it I was disappointed to find that there was nothing on it. But was there not? I had not examined the entire length of it when I too hastily jumped to the conclusion that it was empty; as my hand travelled over into the far corner it suddenly encountered quite a little store of things, all heaped together—a clasp knife, a pipe, a piece of stick tobacco, and a few other odd articles, among which was a box about half full of matches!

They proved to be rather damp, and I had to strike a full half-dozen or more before I succeeded in persuading one to ignite, and while thus employed I was struck for the first time by the coincidence between the condition of affairs on the skipper's shelf and that in the cabin—every loose article had in each case found its way right over to starboard, as far as it could go! What did that point to? Why, obviously, that at some time or another the brig had heeled so heavily to starboard that every movable thing had fetched away by the run and gone over to that side, and had never been replaced! I gathered from this that the brig had been suddenly hove over upon her beam-ends, and that her crew, seized with panic, and no doubt under the impression that she was capsizing, had made a rush for the boats and abandoned her, being, as likely as not, blown so far to leeward by the squall that hove the brig over, that they lost sight of her altogether, and imagined that she had foundered. And by and by, when the squall had blown itself out, the brig, with perhaps her canvas blown away, had simply righted again, and had been drifting about ever since. How long ago that might have happened, I could not at the moment guess, but I thought that possibly with the return of daylight I might be able to discover indications enough to furnish me with a clue.

While thinking thus I had succeeded in finding and lighting a small lamp, hung in gimbals from the fore bulkhead, and by its illumination I saw that the stateroom was a nice, clean, cosy little apartment, such as Miss Onslow might occupy without discomfort; and, waiting only to light the cabin lamp—the globe of which was smashed in on its starboard side, as though it had been dashed violently against the deck above—I hurried up the ladder, and invited the young lady to descend. I led her straight to the skipper's stateroom, and urged her to lie down while I proceeded to search for some food, but she declined to take any rest until we had both partaken of a good meal; so I established her comfortably on the sofa-lockers, and proceeded forthwith in search of the pantry.

I found this, as I had expected, in a corresponding position, on the opposite side of the ship to the cabin which I already designated in my own mind as Miss Onslow's; and in it were several tins of preserved meats and soups, a bottle of pickles, some vinegar, a jar of salt, a bottle of pepper, a cask about three-quarters full of potatoes, part of a string of onions, a barrel nearly full of fine cabin biscuit, or "bread," as it is called at sea, a small canister of tea, another of coffee, a jar of brown sugar, and, in fact, a very fair assortment of such commodities as are usually to be found in an ordinary ship's pantry. I observed, by the way, that such articles as were labelled bore the names of American manufacturers, and I deduced from that fact the impression that the brig was Yankee, an impression that was subsequently confirmed.

I took a biscuit out of the barrel, broke it in two, and handed one piece to Miss Onslow, nibbling at the other myself while I further prosecuted my researches. I did this because the biscuit was hard and dry, and, starving as we were, there was not much likelihood of our eating so much of it as to prove injurious; moreover it would have the effect of taking the sharp edge off our hunger, and enabling us to eat cautiously and in moderation of the more appetising food that I intended to place upon the table as quickly as possible.

My next task was to explore the galley, which I found to be very nicely fitted up with what appeared to be an excellent cooking-stove and a generous supply of implements, the whole of which had, like the articles in the cabin, found their way right over to the starboard side; moreover the top of the stove was rusted in such a way as to suggest that the water from the coppers had been capsized over it—everything, in short, tending to confirm my original impression that the brig had been on her beam-ends. I looked into the coppers, and found them empty. Then I went to the scuttle-butt, but it also was so nearly empty that I did not care to use the small remainder of water in it. There were no more casks on deck, so I concluded that the ship's stock of water was kept below, most probably in tanks. And the thought of the latter reminded me that I had seen a small copper pump in the steward's pantry, so I returned there to get it. Then, with it in one hand, and a lantern in the other, I searched about on deck until I had found the small screw plug that fitted into the tank pipe; and presently I had at my disposal a bucket of sweet fresh water, which I poured into the coppers. I then lighted the galley fire—finding plenty of coal for my immediate wants in the locker—and proceeded to prepare a couple of tins of the preserved soup that I had found in the pantry. Then, while this was cooking, I returned to the cabin to lay the table, but found that Miss Onslow had forestalled me, having cleared away the wreck off the starboard locker, restored the tablecloth to its proper position, and rearranged such portions of the table equipage as had not been smashed in the capsizal. The poor girl looked dreadfully white and thin and weary, but I noticed that during my absence she had found time to take off her hat and to roughly rearrange her hair! Her eyes looked red, as though she had been crying; so, with the view of toning her up a little, I went to work rummaging in the sofa-lockers, and presently found a few bottles of port wine, the neck of one of which I promptly knocked off, and insisted upon her taking a glass there and then. She obeyed me with a sweet submissiveness that was in extraordinary contrast with her demeanour aboard the City of Cawnpore; but a flash of her old spirit returned when she had swallowed the wine, as, handing me the glass, she said:

"There! I have done as you bade me. And now I insist upon your taking some also; for you look positively ghastly, and so ill that, unless you take great care of yourself, you will break down altogether!"

I took the wine, and then hurried away back to the galley, where I remained until the soup was ready. Of this we made a moderate meal, and then, without attempting to clear the table, I gently conducted my companion to the skipper's stateroom, closed the door upon her, and flung myself, just as I was, upon the sofa-lockers of the main cabin, where I instantly fell into a sleep that was absolute oblivion.

I was awakened next morning by a beam of brilliant sunshine flashing intermittently athwart my closed eyelids to the lazy roll of the ship, and, springing to my feet and peering out through the nearest port, I saw that the wind had died away to a flat calm, and that the water was oil-smooth, with very little swell running. I felt greatly refreshed by my sleep—brief though it had been—for it was the first spell of really sound slumber that our precarious situation, and the anxiety attendant upon it, had permitted me to take since the loss of the City of Cawnpore; and, prompted thereto by the hilarity resulting from rest and the cessation of anxiety, I started whistling softly as I gazed out through the port. A moment later Miss Onslow's cabin-door opened for the space of half an inch, and the young lady thus addressed me through the chink:

"Good-morning, Mr Conyers; I am glad to hear you whistling; it shows that your rest has done you good."

"Thank you, yes," I answered; "I am feeling quite my old self again this morning. Were you able to get any rest?"

"Yes indeed," was the reply. "I was so tired that I scarcely remember lying down; and I have not been awake more than five minutes. What a lovely morning it is! I wonder whether I might venture to trouble you to get me a little water to wash in; there is none in here."

"Certainly," I said. "I will fetch you a bucketful at once, and place it at your door, after which I intend to have a bath myself on deck."

"A bath?" she exclaimed, in a tone of unmistakable anxiety. "You surely do not mean that you are going to bathe in the sea? Oh, please do not, Mr Conyers, I beg you; it is far too dangerous; for I am sure there must be sharks here."

"I think it exceedingly probable, and therefore I shall not risk going overboard," I answered. "No; my bath will be taken on the fore deck, in a wash-deck tub, if I can find one."

"Thank you," she returned. "And while you are so engaged I will lay the table for breakfast; I still feel most atrociously hungry!"

I answered that I was glad to hear it, now that we were once more in possession of provisions; and then hurried off up on deck to procure the water asked for; after which I went forward, found a wash-deck tub, filled it from over the side, and treated myself to a salt-water bath, the refreshment of which was like a renewal of life to me.

Then, having dressed, I lighted the galley fire, filled and put on a kettle, had a wash in fresh water, and made my way aft to the cabin, where I found Miss Onslow, looking wonderfully fresh and bright after her night's rest, busily engaged in arranging the cabin table for breakfast. Then came the question: What were we to have? I had a strong fancy for a rasher of bacon, which delicacy seemed also to commend itself to my companion. I therefore looked about for the lazarette hatch, which I discovered underneath a mat at the foot of the companion ladder, and was soon overhauling the contents of the storehouse. The craft proved to be abundantly stocked with excellent provisions, among which I discovered an open cask nearly full of smoked hams, one of which I at once appropriated; and half an hour later found the Indian judge's daughter and myself seated before a most appetising breakfast.

And, as we ate, we talked—talked of what we were now to do. My companion seemed to be under the impression that the discovery of this derelict brig would in some way alter all our arrangements; but I had no difficulty in demonstrating to her that our object—the making of our way to some civilised port from which we could make a fresh start for Calcutta—still remained the same, the only difference being that whereas on the previous day we had possessed only an open boat, and were starving, we now had a vessel under our feet that, if staunch, would prove far safer and more comfortable than the boat, while we also possessed food in abundance. But, as I pointed out to her, there was a certain price to pay for these advantages, namely, the greatly-increased labour of handling the brig, as compared with the boat; and I thought it advisable to make the young lady understand at once that I should from time to time require her assistance. But I presently discovered that there was no need for me to dwell upon this point; she quickly informed me that she had already planned for herself the performance of what might be called the "domestic" part of the work, such as the preparation of meals, and so on; while she also expressed her perfect readiness to steer, when required, or in any other way assist me, so far as she could. And here I could not avoid being impressed afresh with the extraordinary change that misfortune had wrought in this girl; for whereas while on board the City of Cawnpore she had maintained a demeanour of haughty and repellent reserve that was almost insolent, she now exhibited a gentle submissiveness and amiability of manner, with a quiet, steadfast courage under circumstances, of peculiar and terrible hardship and privation for a gently-nurtured woman, that, conjoined with her exceptional beauty of face and form, exercised a fascination upon me so potent that I frequently found it exceedingly difficult to maintain that equable coolness and strict friendliness of behaviour demanded by the exigencies of our peculiar situation. All of which, however, is merely parenthetical.

Breakfast over, a busy day awaited me. I had used my eyes to good purpose, even while taking my morning tub; and had observed, among other things, that the brig's canvas was not furled; it had simply been blown clear and clean out of the boltropes. When the accident befell her she had been under courses and single-reefed topsails, spanker, fore-topmast staysail, and jib, for there the boltropes still were, with small fluttering rags of canvas still adhering to them, here and there. There was no difficulty whatever in arriving at a correct conclusion as to what had happened,—the aspect of the ship told the story as plainly as her own crew could have related it. The thing had happened after nightfall—that part of the story was made clear by the litter that had been shot off the cabin table, and which showed that the skipper and one of the mates had been at supper at the time. The single-reefed topsails indicated that it had previously been blowing strong, and I took it that the night had settled down so dark and cloudy that the officer of the watch had failed to note the approach of the squall until too late. The topsail halliards had been let go fore and aft when the squall swooped down upon them, but before it was possible to do anything further the brig had been hove down upon her beam-ends, a panic had seized the crew, they had made a mad rush for the boats, under the conviction that the vessel was capsizing, and they had either been swamped, or had been driven out of sight to leeward, before the brig had righted again. There was no doubt that the squall had been of exceptional violence, for not only were all the sails blown away, but both topgallant-masts were gone at the caps—not only broken off but actually torn away, the rigging that held them having parted.

It would be strange indeed if a vessel, having passed through such an ordeal as this, should not show signs of having been more or less strained, and I was quite prepared to find that she had a considerable amount of water in her. And this anticipation was so far confirmed that, upon sounding the well, I found close upon three and a half feet of water in the hold. This was bad enough, still it was hardly as bad as I had expected; and now, the next thing to find out was whether she was still leaking, or whether what she contained had all drained into her during the time when she lay hove down on her beam-ends. This could be done by patiently waiting some few hours, and then sounding the well again. Or it could be done equally effectively by pumping the hooker dry, and then seeing whether any more water drained into her. It was vitally necessary to restore her to her normal condition of buoyancy as speedily as might be, in view of a possible recurrence of bad weather. But the same contingency rendered it almost, if not quite, as necessary to bend and set a sufficient amount of canvas to put the ship under control; and the first question to be settled was: Which should I first undertake? I considered the matter for a minute or two, and came to the conclusion that the pumping out of that three and a half feet of water would leave my hands in such a blistered and raw condition that they would be practically useless for such work as bending sails; so I determined to undertake the latter job first, especially as there was of course the chance that the weather might continue fine after the springing up of a breeze, in which event, if the brig were under canvas, she would be making headway during the operation of pumping her out.

I was under the impression that on the preceding night I had detected the presence of what might prove to be a sail-locker abaft the after bulkhead of the cabin, so I now descended with the object of further investigating. My surmise proved well founded, for when I opened the door in the bulkhead there lay a whole pile of sails before me, each sail neatly stopped, and many of them apparently quite new. I had come to the conclusion that I would bend the fore-topmast staysail first, and after a great deal of laborious work in turning over the various bundles of canvas I came to what I was searching for, but not until I had previously encountered new fore and main-topsails, which I managed, with considerable difficulty, to drag on deck.

The bending of the staysail was no very serious matter; it simply meant letting go the halliards, dragging upon the downhaul, cutting the boltrope away from the hanks, passing the new seizings, hoisting the sail foot by foot until I had got all the seizings finished, bending the sheets afresh, and there we were.

But to bend a topsail, single-handed, was a much more difficult job. I decided to bend the main-topsail first; and by the time that I had completed my task the day was done and it was growing so dark that I could scarcely see to finish off properly. Nevertheless I was very well content with my day's work, for I now had canvas enough on the brig to place her under command whenever the breeze might choose to come.

Meanwhile Miss Onslow had been no less busy than myself, in another way. She had started by making herself complete mistress of the brig's resources, looked at from a housekeeper's point of view; and in course of the process had discovered—what I had already suspected, but had not found time to verify—that outside the cabin, and alongside the companion ladder, was another stateroom, that, judging from its appearance and contents, had belonged to the mate. This cabin she had overhauled, making an inventory of its contents—which she handed to me—and had then tidied it up and made it ready for my occupation. Moreover, she had taken possession of the galley, and had prepared a good, substantial, and appetising dinner in a style that, if not quite equal to that of a professional cook, betrayed at least an aptitude that was as creditable as it was opportune. She had also found time to do something—I had not the remotest idea what—to her dress that had gone a considerable way toward renovating its appearance and obliterating the disfigurement caused by the action of the sea water upon it; while in other ways she had spruced-up her appearance to an extent that excited my fervent but carefully-concealed admiration.

At sunset that night it was still stark calm, and the sky had a fine, clear, settled aspect that, combined with a slight disposition to rise on the part of the brig's barometer, led me to anticipate that the calm was destined to endure for a few hours longer. For this I was devoutly thankful, for I had been toiling like a slave all day, fully exposed to the scorching rays of a cloudless sun, and I was fatigued to the verge of exhaustion; it was a great comfort, therefore, to feel that I should not be called upon to look after the ship all night, but might safely indulge in a few hours' sleep. That I might do so with the greater confidence, I routed out a tarpaulin from below, and with it rigged up a tent on the wheel grating, as a shelter from the heavy dew; bringing up the bed from the mate's bunk, and turning in on deck. This arrangement ensured that in the event of a breeze springing up during the night I should instantly become aware of it, and be ready to promptly take such measures as might appear necessary.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

WE PICK UP A SHIPWRECKED CREW.

The night passed without incident of any sort; and when I awoke at dawn there was still no sign of wind, for which I was thankful; for, while I was naturally anxious to be making some progress, it was vitally necessary to get more sail upon the brig; and this little spell of calm weather happened most opportunely for my purpose.

A bath, an early breakfast, and I went to work once more, the bending and setting, of the fore-topsail being my first job. I finished this about noon, and considered that I had done very well when at dusk I had added to my spread of canvas the standing jib and spanker.

It was a whim of Miss Onslow's that our midday meal should be tiffin; dinner being reserved until the work of the day was over, when—as the young lady sagely remarked—we could both spare time to do due justice to the meal. Thus it happened, upon the day in question, that it was quite dark when at length, having washed and polished myself up after the labours of the day, I took my place at the table in the brig's little cabin. It was then still flat calm; but we had scarcely finished the meal when a little draught of air came down through the open skylight, cool and refreshing, and at the same moment the sound of a faint rustling of the canvas reached our ears. I at once sprang up on deck, and found that a light air from about east-south-east had sprung up, taking us aback and giving the brig sternway. The pressure of water upon the rudder had forced the helm hard down, however, causing the brig to box off; I had nothing to do, therefore, but to trim sail and steady the helm at the proper moment, when the vessel gathered headway and began to move quietly through the water on a southerly course, close-hauled on the larboard tack.

I was now obliged to take the wheel; but it was not long before I made the discovery that, under the sail now set, the brig was practically steering herself, and by the time that I had been at the wheel half an hour I had contrived to hit off so accurately the exact amount of weather-helm required to keep the craft going "full-and-by," that I was able to lash the wheel, and attend to other matters.

And there was still plenty awaiting my attention. Among other immediate demands upon my energies there was the boat to be secured; thus far she had been hanging on astern by her painter, but she was far too valuable a possession to be any longer neglected; and now that a breeze had sprung up I determined to secure her forthwith and while it was still possible to do so. The brig carried a pair, of davits on each quarter, so I hauled the boat up on the starboard side, made her fast, slipped down into her and hooked on the tackles, and then, climbing inboard once more, hauled them both hand-taut. Then, going forward, I brought aft a snatch-block that I had previously been using, led the falls, one after the other, through this to the winch, and, with Miss Onslow hanging on to the rope to prevent it slipping on the barrel of the winch, managed to hoist the boat and secure her.

The weather continued fine, and the wind light, all through the night, the ship's speed being barely three knots; and once more I turned in on the wheel grating and slept soundly, the ship steering herself so perfectly that I found it quite unnecessary to interfere with the wheel; and when I awoke at sunrise she was still stealing along as steadily as ever.

The sky looked so beautifully fine and clear when I went below to breakfast, in response to Miss Onslow's summons, that it came upon me quite as a shock to discover—as I did by a casual glance—that the mercury was falling; not much, but just enough to indicate that the breeze was going to freshen. Now, I had no objection whatever to the wind freshening—within certain limits; up to the point, say, where the brig could just comfortably carry the canvas that was now set—I was in a hurry to arrive somewhere, and, within the limits above named, I should have heartily welcomed an increase of wind. But the mischief was that when once the strength of the wind began to increase, there was no knowing how far it might go; it might go on increasing to the strength of a whole gale, in which case it would become necessary for me to shorten sail, unless I chose to accept the alternative of letting my canvas blow away. And even in so small a vessel as the brig, to shorten sail was a serious matter, when there happened to be only one person to undertake the work; yet, if it came on to blow, it would have to be done, since it would never do to let the sails blow away, so long, that is to say, as they could be saved by hard work. There was, however, time enough to think about that; there was a still more serious matter demanding my attention, namely, the getting rid of the water in the hold. To this task, accordingly, I addressed myself immediately after breakfast, first taking the precaution to most carefully sound the well. The result of this preliminary operation was so far reassuring that I found a depth of just three feet six inches of water, the merest trifle more than the rod had showed forty-eight hours before, thus demonstrating that the hull was once more practically as tight as a bottle. Thus encouraged, I got to work at the pump, working steadily and systematically, exerting my strength to the best advantage, and sparing my hands as far as possible by enwrapping the handle first in canvas and then in a strip of a blanket taken from one of the forecastle bunks. It was terribly back-breaking work—this steady toil at the pumps, and when midday arrived and I knocked off to get a meridian altitude of the sun, wherefrom to compute our latitude, I was pretty well exhausted; but I had my reward in the discovery that I had reduced the depth of water in the hold by nearly eight inches—thus showing that, after all, the quantity of water was not nearly so formidable as it had at first seemed, existing indeed only in the more or less inconsiderable spaces not occupied by the cargo. After tiffin I again went to work, and toiled steadily on until sunset, by which time I had reduced the depth by a further six inches, at the same time fatiguing myself to the point of exhaustion.

And all through this day of toil I had been maintaining a most anxious watch upon the weather, without detecting any disquieting sign whatever; it is true that the wind strengthened somewhat—sufficiently, in fact, to bring the brig's speed up to close upon five knots, but this was the reverse of alarming, especially as the sky remained clear. But when at length we sat down to dinner that evening, I found that the mercury still manifested a disposition to sink. Apart, however, from this behaviour on the part of the barometer, every omen was so reassuring that when Miss Onslow bade me goodnight, and retired to her cabin, I unhesitatingly settled myself again upon the wheel grating for the night, and soon fell into the deep sleep of healthy fatigue.

I was awakened some time during the night—I had no idea whatever of the hour—by the loud rustling of canvas; and upon starting to my feet I found that the wind had strengthened so considerably that the slight amount of weather-helm afforded by the lashed wheel had at length proved insufficient, with the result that the brig had shot into the wind, throwing both topsails aback and her fore and aft canvas a-shiver. Instinctively I sprang to the wheel and put it well over, just in time to pay the vessel off again; but it was fully half an hour before I had again hit off the exact position of the wheel with sufficient nicety to allow of its being again lashed, and the brig once more left to take care of herself.