people who have had no
experience generally suppose. The Cunard steamers have been running more
than a quarter of a century, with the loss of only one ship, and no
lives in that one--a triumphant result achieved by strong ships, with
competent men to manage them. Poorly built ships, short manned, with
officers unfit for their positions, constitute the harvest of
destruction on the ocean.

Mr. Lowington believed that the students of the Academy Ship would be as
safe on board the Young America as they would on shore. He had taken a
great deal of pains to demonstrate his theory to parents, and though he
often failed, he often succeeded. The Young America had just passed
through one of the severest gales of the year, and in cruising for the
next three years, she would hardly encounter a more terrific storm. She
had safely weathered it; the boys had behaved splendidly, and not one of
them had been lost, or even injured, by the trying exposure. The
principal's theory was thus far vindicated.

The starboard watch piped to breakfast, when the sail was discovered,
too far off to make her out. The boys all manifested a deep interest in
the distant wanderer on the tempestuous sea, mingled with a desire to
know how the stranger had weathered the gale. Many of them went up the
shrouds into the tops, and the spy-glasses were in great demand.

"Do you make her out, Captain Gordon?" asked Mr. Fluxion, as he came up
from his breakfast, and discovered the commander watching the stranger
through the glass.

"Yes, sir; I can just make her out now. Her foremast and mainmast have
gone by the board, and she has the ensign, union down, hoisted at her
mizzen," replied the captain, with no little excitement in his manner.

"Indeed!" exclaimed the teacher of mathematics, as he took the glass.
"You are right, Captain Gordon, and you had better keep her away."

"Shall I speak to Mr. Lowington first, sir?" asked the captain.

"I think there is no need of it in the present instance. There can be
no doubt what he will do when a ship is in distress."

"Mr. Kendall, keep her away two points," said the captain to the officer
of the deck. "What is the ship's course now?"

"East-south-east, sir," replied the second lieutenant, who had the deck.

"Make it south-east."

"South-east, sir," repeated Kendall. "Quartermaster keep her away two
points," he added to the petty officer conning the wheel.

"Two points, sir," said Bennington, the quarterma