e brig rushed
onward at a speed which she had never before equalled even in the
fiercest gale--tossed hither and thither by the leaping foam, yet always
kept going straight onward by the expert steering of her captain.

"Come aft--all of you!" he shouted, when it was evident that the vessel
was being borne surely forward on the wave's crest. "The masts will go
for certain when we strike."

The danger of being entangled in the falling spars and cordage was so
obvious that every one except the hermit and Nigel obeyed.

"Here, Nigel," gasped the former. "I--I've--lost blood--faint!----"

Our hero at once saw that Van der Kemp, fainting from previous loss of
blood, coupled with exertion, was unable to do anything but hold on.
Indeed, he failed even in that, and would have fallen to the deck had
Nigel not caught him by the arm.

"Can you run aft, Winnie?" said Nigel anxiously.

"Yes!" said the girl, at once understanding the situation and darting to
the wheel, of which and of Captain Roy she laid firm hold, while Nigel
lifted the hermit in his arms and staggered to the same spot. Winnie
knelt beside him immediately, and, forgetting for the moment all the
horrors around her, busied herself in replacing the bandage which had
been loosened from his head.

"Oh! Mr. Roy, save him!--save him!" cried the poor child, appealing in
an agony to Nigel, for she felt instinctively that when the crash came
her father would be utterly helpless even to save himself.

Nigel had barely time to answer when a wild shout from the crew caused
him to start up and look round. A flare from the volcano had cast a red
light over the bewildering scene, and revealed the fact that the brig
was no longer above the ocean's bed, but was passing in its wild career
right through, or rather _over_, the demolished town of Anjer. A few of
the houses that had been left standing by the previous waves were being
swept--hurled--away by this one, but the mass of rolling, rushing,
spouting water was so deep, that the vessel had as yet struck nothing
save the tops of some palm-trees which bent their heads like straws
before the flood.

Even in the midst of the amazement, alarm, and anxiety caused by the
situation, Nigel could not help wondering that in this final and
complete destruction of the town no sign of struggling human beings
should be visible. He forgot at the moment, what was terribly proved
afterwards, that the first waves had swallowed up men, wome