l strength and thickness.

Then he took up one of those great augers he had found in the mate's
cabin, and bored a hole in the door; through this hole he fired his
pistol, and then screamed for help. "I am shut up in the cabin. I shall
be drowned. Oh, for Christ's sake, save me! save me!" and a cold sweat of
terror poured down his whole body.

What is that?

The soft rustle of a woman's dress.

Oh, how he thanked God for that music, and the hope it gave him!

It comes toward him; it stops, the key is turned, the dress rustles away,
swift as a winged bird; he dashes at the door; it flies open.

Nobody was near. He recovered his courage in part, fetched out his bag
and his tools, and ran across to the starboard side. There he found the
captain lowering Miss Rolleston, with due care, into the cutter, and the
young lady crying; not at being shipwrecked, if you please, but at being
deserted by her maid. Jane Holt, at this trying moment, had deserted her
mistress for her husband. This was natural; but, as is the rule with
persons of that class, she had done this in the silliest and cruelest
way. Had she given half an hour's notice of her intention, Donovan might
have been on board the cutter with her and her mistress. But no; being a
liar and a fool, she must hide her husband to the last moment, and then
desert her mistress. The captain, then, was comforting Miss Rolleston,
and telling her she should have her maid with her eventually, when Hazel
came. He handed down his own bag, and threw the blankets into the
stern-sheets. Then went down himself, and sat on the midship thwart.

"Shove off," said the captain; and they fell astern.

But Cooper, with a boat-hook, hooked on to the long-boat; and the dying
ship towed them both.

Five minutes more elapsed, and the captain did not come down, so Wylie
hailed him.

There was no answer. Hudson had gone into the mate's cabin. Wylie waited
a minute, then hailed again. "Hy! on deck there!"

"Hullo!" cried the captain, at last.

"Why didn't you come in the cutter?"

The captain crossed his arms and leaned over the stern.

"Don't you know that Hiram Hudson is always the last to leave a sinking
ship?"

"Well, you _are_ the last," said Wylie. "So now come on board the
long-boat at once. I dare not tow in her wake much longer, to be sucked
in when she goes down."

"Come on board your craft and desert my own?" said Hudson, disdainfully.
"Know my duty to m' employers better.