rward with upreared threatening
crest toward the wreck.

There was a warning cry from those on board the wreck, as they saw this
terrible wall of water rushing down upon them, and each seized with
desperate grip whatever came nearest to hand, clinging thereto with the
tenacity of despair. Bob heard the cry, saw the danger, and had just
time to struggle clear of the wreck and pass under her stern when the
breaker burst upon them. Blinded, stunned, and breathless, he felt
himself whirled helplessly hither and thither, while a load like that of
a mountain seemed to rest upon him and press him down. At last he
emerged again, considerably to leeward of the wreck, but with the rope
which they had thrown him still in his hands. As he gasped for breath
and shook the salt water out of his eyes, something swayed against him
beneath the surface--something which he knew instantly must be a human
body. In a second he had it in his grasp, and, dragging it above water,
found it to be the body of a child, apparently about two years old. At
the same moment a powerful strain came upon the line which he held in
his hand, and he had only time to take, by a rapid movement, two or
three turns of it round his arm when those on the wreck began to haul
him on board.

In less time than it takes to tell of it, he was dragged inboard, and
lay panting and exhausted upon the steeply inclined deck of the wreck,
with a curious crowd of haggard-eyed anxious men and women gathered
round him. A man dressed in a fine white linen shirt and blue serge
trousers (he was the master of the ship, and had given his remaining
garments to shield the poor shivering, frightened children) was in the
act of kneeling down by Bob's side, apparently intending to question
him, when a piercing shriek was heard, and a woman darted forward with
the cry "My child! my child!" and seized the body which Bob had brought
on board and still held in his arms.

This incident created a diversion; and Bob speedily recovering the use
of his faculties, and rapidly explaining the intentions of those on
board the smack, a strong hawser was soon stretched from the _Seamew_ to
the wreck, a "bo'sun's chair" slung thereto; and the transport of the
shipwrecked crew and passengers at once commenced.

The journey, though short, was fraught with the utmost peril; for it
being impossible to keep the hawser strained taut, the poor unfortunate
wretches had to be dragged through rather than