water which flowed out through the scuppers.

It seemed wonderful that he could go on, but after some time he also
stopped, and staggered to where he had left the rod.

"I'll try," he said.

I gazed at him with intense anxiety.

"Three inches less. We're gaining on the leaks!" he exclaimed.

I sprang to my feet and seized the brake. Jim struck out with his arms
"to take the turns out of the muscles," as he said, while he sat for a
minute on the deck, and again went at it.

All this time the wind was falling and the sea going down. As we
laboured at the pumps we looked out anxiously for the appearance of a
vessel which might afford us assistance, but not a sail appeared above
the horizon. We must depend on our own exertions for preserving our
lives. Though a calm would enable us the better to free the brig of
water and to get up jury-masts, it would lessen our chance of obtaining
help. Yet while the brig was rolling and tumbling about we could do
nothing but pump, and pump we did till our strength failed us, and we
both sank down on the deck.

My eyes closed, and I felt that I was dropping off to sleep. How long I
thus lay I could not tell, when I heard Jim sing out--

"Hurrah! We've gained six inches on the leak," and clank, clank, clank,
went his pump.

I cannot say that I sprang up, but I got, somehow or other, on my feet,
and, seizing the brake, laboured away more like a person in his sleep
than one awake.

I saw the water flowing freely, so I knew that I was not pumping
uselessly. Presently I heard Jim cry out--

"Hillo! Look there!"

Turning my eyes aft, I saw the captain holding on by the
companion-hatch, and gazing in utter astonishment along the deck. His
head bound up in a white cloth, a blanket over his shoulders, his face
pale as death, he looked more like a ghost than a living man.

"Where are they, lads?" he exclaimed at length, in a hollow voice.

"All gone overboard, sir," answered Jim, thinking he ought to speak.

The old man, on hearing this, fell flat on the deck.

We ran and lifted him up. At first I thought he was dead, but he soon
opened his eyes and whispered--

"It was a passing weakness, and I'll be better soon. Trust in God,
laddies; go on pumping, and He'll save your lives," he said.

"We'll take you below first, sir. You'll be better in your berth than
here," I answered.

"No, no! I'll stay on deck; the fresh air will do me good," he said;
but scarcely h