un rise; but still one of us may escape. You
remember the promise we made each other.'

"`Yes, Michael,' I said, `that I do, and hope to keep it.'

"The promise was that if one should be lost and the other saved, he who
escaped should look after the wife and family of the one who was lost.

"I had scarcely answered him when the look-out forward shouted `Breakers
ahead!' and before the ship's course could be altered, down she came,
crashing on the rocks. It was all up with the craft; the seas came
dashing over her, and many of those on deck were washed away. The
unfortunate passengers rushed up from below, and in an instant were
swept overboard.

"The captain ordered the remaining masts to be cut away, to ease the
ship; but it did no good, and just as the last fell she broke in two,
and all on board were cast into the water, I found myself clinging with
your father to one of the masts. The head of the mast was resting on a
rock. We made our way along it; I believed that others were following;
but just as we reached the rock the mast was carried away, and he and I
found that we alone had escaped.

"The seas rose up foaming around us, and every moment we expected to be
washed away. Though we knew many were perishing close around us we had
no means of helping them. All we could do was to cling on and try and
save our own lives.

"`I hope we shall get back home yet, Michael,' I said, wishing to cheer
your father, for he was more down-hearted than usual.

"`I hope so, Paul, but I don't know; God's will be done, whatever that
will is. Paul, you will meet me in heaven, I hope,' he answered, for he
was a Christian man. `If I am taken, you will look after Mary and my
boy,' he added. Again I promised him, and I knew to a certainty that he
would look after my Nelly, should he be saved and I drowned.

"When the morning came at last scarcely a timber or plank of the wreck
was to be seen. What hope of escape had either of us? The foaming
waters raged around, and we were half perished with cold and hunger. On
looking about I found a small spar washed up on the rock, and, fastening
our handkerchiefs together, we rigged out a flag, but there was little
chance of a boat putting off in such weather and coming near enough to
see it. We now knew that we were not far off the Land's End, on one of
two rocks called The Sisters, with the village of Senum abreast of us.

"Your father and I looked in each other's faces; we f