is when a new idea seemed to strike the
skipper.

"'We can't be many miles from St. Paul's Rocks,' he said; and he set to
work to make some calculations. The result was that a man was sent to
the masthead to look for the rocks, sail was made on the ship, and the
pumps were manned again. St. Paul's Rocks, you must know, are a small
cluster of rocky projections, rising at the highest point about sixty
feet above the sea. They are in latitude 56' N., longitude 29 deg. 20'
W., and our old man figured that we weren't over fifteen miles away from
them. Half an hour later the masthead lookout sighted the rocks, and a
little later we sighted them from the decks.

"'My idea is,' said the Captain to the mate, 'to run the ship on the
rocks. That will enable us to save all our dunnage and all the boats,
and give us a breathing-spell to decide what's the next best move.'

"The mate agreed that it was a great scheme. The Captain went aloft to
pick out a place to run the ship ashore. He found a good spot where her
bow would wedge up on the rocks, so that she would not slip off and
sink, and he headed her for it. She struck pretty hard, and the
foretop-gallant-mast went by the board, taking the flying jib-boom along
with it; but we did not mind that, for we found that the ship had taken
the ground for nearly half her length, and was in what you might call a
mighty comfortable berth for a sinking craft. Two of our boats were
smashed by the falling spars, but the long-boat was all right, and that
was what the Captain counted on to take us off the rocks.

"Now the nearest land to St. Paul's Rocks is the north-eastern extremity
of Brazil, Cape St. Roque, and that's something over 500 good sea miles
away. I was only a small boy, but I had sense enough to know that a
voyage of that length in a ship's boat would be a desperate undertaking,
and even if successful, sure to embrace terrible hardship and exposure.
The Captain and the mate knew it, too, and they decided to remain right
where they were for a few days on the chance of sighting a passing ship.
That was a mighty poor chance, too, for very few vessels pass within
sighting distance of St. Paul's Rocks. The great circle track from
England to the Cape of Good Hope lies between fifty and sixty miles to
the westward of them, and vessels are more likely to deviate to the
westward of the track than to the eastward. Every sensible navigator
gives those rocks a wide berth, anyhow. It was whe