eet,
eye on the waves, to ease her at the right moment; and with all this care
the spray eternally flying half way over her mast, and often a body of
water making a clean breach over her, and the men bailing night and day
with their very hats, or she could not have lived an hour.

At last, when they were almost dead with wet, cold, fatigue and danger, a
vessel came in sight and crept slowly up, about two miles to windward of
the distressed boat. With the heave of the waters they could see little
more than her sails; but they ran up a bright bandanna handkerchief to
their masthead; and the ship made them out. She hoisted Dutch colors,
and--continued her course.

Then the poor abandoned creatures wept and raved, and cursed in their
frenzy, glaring after that cruel, shameless man who could do such an act,
yet hoist a color, and show of what nation he was the native--and the
disgrace.

But one of them said not a word. This was Wylie. He sat shivering, and
remembered how he had abandoned the cutter, and all on board. Loud sighs
broke from his laboring breast; but not a word. Yet one word was ever
present to his mind; and seemed written in fire on the night of clouds,
and howled in his ears by the wind--Retribution!

And now came a dirty night--to men on ships; a fearful night to men in
boats. The sky black, the sea on fire with crested billows, that broke
over them every minute; their light was washed out; their provisions
drenched and spoiled; bail as they would, the boat was always filling. Up
to their knees in water; cold as ice, blinded with spray, deafened with
roaring billows, they tossed and tumbled in a fiery foaming hell of
waters, and still, though despairing, clung to their lives, and bailed
with their hats unceasingly.

Day broke, and the first sight it revealed to them was a brig to windward
staggering along, and pitching under close-reefed topsails.

They started up, and waved their hats, and cried aloud. But the wind
carried their voices to leeward, and the brig staggered on.

They ran up their little signal of distress; but still the ship staggered
on.

Then the miserable men shook hands all round, and gave themselves up for
lost.

But, at this moment, the brig hoisted a vivid flag all stripes and stars,
and altered her course a point or two.

She crossed the boat's track a mile ahead, and her people looked over the
bulwarks, and waved their hats to encourage those tossed and desperate
men.

Ha