almost directly to windward of the seeming
derelict, he gave orders to back the main-yard, and instructed the
carpenter to take the lee quarter-boat, with three hands, and go on
board.

"Well, Miss Trevor," said Leslie, as the two stood together near the
binnacle, watching the boat rising and falling like a cork over the long
hummocks of swell as she swept rapidly down toward the wreck, "what
think you of that for a sight? Is it not a very perfect picture of ruin
and desolation? A few days ago--it can scarcely be more--that craft
floated buoyantly and all ataunto, `walking the waters like a thing of
life,' her decks presenting an animated picture of busy activity, as her
crew went hither and thither about their several tasks; while yonder
poop, perchance, was gay with its company of passengers whiling away the
time with books, games, or flirtations, according to their respective
inclinations. And over all towered the three masts, lofty and
symmetrical, with all their orderly intricacy of standing and running
rigging, and their wide-spreading spaces of snow-white canvas; the whole
combining to make up as stately and beautiful a picture as a sailor's
eye need care to rest upon. And now look at her! There she lies, clean
shorn of every vestige of those spacious `white wings,' that imparted
life and grace to her every movement; her decks tenantless and
wave-swept; her hull full of water, and the relentless sea leaping at
her with merciless persistency, as though eager to drag her down and
overwhelm her! Can you conceive a more sorrowful picture?"

"I could, perhaps; although I grant you that it must be difficult to
imagine any sight more grievous than that to a _sailor's_ eye," answered
the girl, gazing upon the scene with eyes wide and brilliant with
interest and excitement. "How fearlessly that little boat seems to
dance over those huge waves! She reminds me of one of those birds--
Mother Carey's chickens, I think they are called--that one reads about
as sporting fearlessly and joyously on the tops of the wave-crests
during the height of the fiercest storms. Ah, now they have reached
her," she continued, clasping her hands on her breast unconsciously as
she watched the wild plunges of the boat compared with the deadly slow
heave of the water-logged hulk. "Oh, Mr Leslie, how could you order
those men to undertake so desperately dangerous a task? They will never
do it; they cannot; their boat will be dashed to