fficer, who had made his escape from a French prison; and I was
certain, from the name and from the description he gave me, that the
officer must have been my father. The ship touched nowhere till she was
wrecked on some rocks in the Southern Ocean, between the Mauritius and
Australia. My father was among those who escaped. They were rescued by
a South Sea whaler, which my informant quitted to join another ship,
leaving him on board. Where my father was going to he could not tell,
but concluded that he intended returning home. Even should he have done
so, he would have been unable to hear of me, and this makes me anxious
in the extreme to return home, to try and find him out."

I sympathised with Miss Kitty when she gave me this account, and told
her how glad I should be to assist her in the search.

Some days after this, one of those furious gales which occasionally blow
over the usually calm waters of the Pacific came on, and we unexpectedly
made an island not marked in the charts, to avoid which our course was
being altered, when a squall laid the ship almost on her beam-ends.
Throwing off my jacket, that my arms might be perfectly unfettered, I
sprang aloft with others yet further to shorten sail, when the
main-topmast and the yard on which I hung were carried away. The next
moment I found myself struggling amid the foaming waters. The ship flew
on. To heave-to or lower a boat I knew was impossible. I gave myself
up for lost: still I struck out with the instinct of self-preservation.
The seas dancing wildly around circumscribed my view, and I could only
just see the masts of the ship as she receded from me. Several other
poor fellows I knew had been hove into the sea off the yard with me.
Though dressed only in a light shirt and trousers, I was nearly
exhausted. Had I retained my jacket, I believe that I should have been
unable to keep myself afloat. Just then a shout reached my ears, and I
saw Bill seated astride a piece of timber, not far from me. With my
remaining strength I made towards it, and he, seizing me by the shirt,
hauled me up, and made me fast with some rope attached to the spar.

"Glad to find you, Charley," he said. "I saw the timber, when I thought
there was no hope, and got on to it. Now we must trust that the ship
will come back to pick us up, or that the wind will drive us to the
shore, otherwise we shall be badly off."

I thought so too; but having escaped immediate death so won