is
quite insensible, and will not know the agony we have to face."

The old sailor looked curiously in his companion's face.

"Agony!" he said, slowly; "agony! Well, I suppose it is, but I've been
face to face with the end so many times that I suppose I've got a bit
blunt. Do you know, sir, it seems to nip me more about that poor young
chap than it does about myself."

The doctor looked at the speaker searchingly for a few moments, and then
said, quietly:

"Can we do anything to try and save his life, my man? Life-preservers,
raft, or anything of that sort?"

The old sailor laughed softly.

"Life-preserver in a sea like this means being smothered in a few
minutes, and such a raft as we could make would be knocked to pieces and
us washed off. No, sir; we're in shelter where we can die peaceably,
and all we can do is to meet it like men."

The doctor's brow knit, and he looked as if in horrible pain for a few
moments. Then a calm, peaceful look came over his countenance, and he
smiled and held out his hand.

"Yes," he said, quietly; "meet it like men."

The old sailor stared at him for a moment, and then snatched and gripped
the extended hand in perfect silence.

"Ha!" he ejaculated at last. "I feel better, sir, after that. Now
let's talk about the youngster there."

The huge breakers had kept on steadily thundering at the side of the
steamer, rising over her and crashing down on her decks with the
greatest regularity; but now, as the old sailor spoke and turned towards
the insensible boy, it seemed as if a billow greater than any which had
come before rolled up and broke short on the reef, with the result that
the immense bank of water seemed to plunge under the broad side of the
steamer, lifting her, and once more they were borne on the summit of the
wave with a rush onward. There was a fierce, wild, hissing roar, and
the great vessel seemed to creak and groan as if it were a living
creature in its final agony, and old Bostock gripped the doctor's hand
again.

"It's come, my lad," he shouted, "and we'll meet it like men. We shall
strike again directly, and she'll go to pieces like a bundle of wood."

The two men had risen to their feet, and to steady themselves they each
laid the hand at liberty upon the berth which held their young
companion.

How long they stood like this neither of them could afterwards have
said, but it seemed an hour, during which the steamer was borne
broadside on by th