ving thus given them the weather-gage, the brig hove to for them.

They ran down to her and crept under her lee; down came ropes to them,
held by friendly hands, and friendly faces shone down at them. Eager
grasps seized each as he went up the ship's side, and so, in a very short
time, they sent the woman up, and the rest being all sailors and clever
as cats, they were safe on board the whaling brig _Maria,_ Captain
Slocum, of Nantucket, U. S.

Their log, compass and instruments were also saved.

The boat was cast adrift, and was soon after seen bottom upward on the
crest of a wave.

The good Samaritan in command of the _Maria_ supplied them with dry
clothes out of the ship's stores, good food, and medical attendance,
which was much needed, their legs and feet being in a deplorable
condition, and their own surgeon crippled. A southeasterly gale induced
the American skipper to give Cape Horn a wide berth, and the _Maria_ soon
found herself three degrees south of that perilous coast. There she
encountered field-ice. In this labyrinth they dodged and worried for
eighteen days, until a sudden chop in the wind gave the captain a chance,
of which he promptly availed himself; and in forty hours they sighted
Terra del Fuego.

During this time the rescued crew, having recovered from the effects of
their hardships, fell into the work of the ship, and took their turns
with the Yankee seamen. The brig was short-handed; but now, trimmed and
handled by a full crew with the _Proserpine's_ men, who were first-class
seamen, and worked with a will, because work was no longer a duty, she
exhibited a speed the captain had almost forgotten was in the craft. Now
speed at sea means economy, for every day added to a voyage is so much
off the profits. Slocum was part owner of the vessel, and shrewdly alive
to the value of the seamen. When about three hundred miles south of
Buenos Ayres, Wylie proposed that they should be landed there, from
whence they might be transshipped to a vessel bound for home.

This was objected to by Slocum, on the ground that, by such a deviation
from his course, he must lose three days, and the port dues at Buenos
Ayres were heavy.

Wylie undertook that the house of Wardlaw & Son should indemnify the brig
for all expenses and losses incurred.

Still the American hesitated; at last he honestly told Wylie he wished to
keep the men; he liked them, they liked him. He had sounded them, and
they had no objection to