inclined for a chat as
usual. I turned to look at the sea in search of more pieces of wreck,
when I discovered in the distance a dark speck rising out of the
water. I pointed it out to the skipper at once, who took his glass out
of his pocket, and after looking through it for a moment exclaimed,

"There's something floating there, and a man clinging to it, as I'm
alive!"

As he spoke my brother-in-law came on deck, and also took a look
through the telescope. Then he, the captain and every sailor on board
became eager and excited. You would have thought it some dear friend
of each whose life was to be saved. The yacht was headed in the
direction of the object, the boat was quickly lowered, the captain
himself, with four sailors, jumping into it, and in another minute
they caught in their arms a poor little exhausted and fainting boy as
he dropped from the mast of a large sunken ship. We could now
distinguish the tops of all the three masts appearing above the waves,
for the sea was not deep, and the ship had settled down in an upright
position.

Poor Charley Standish was soon in the cabin of the yacht, and after
swallowing some champagne he revived sufficiently to tell us his
story. The sunken ship was the "Melbourne," bound for Australia, and
this was Charley's first voyage as a midshipman on board. During the
darkness of the night she had been run into by a large homeward-bound
merchantman of the same class. She sank within an hour of the
collision. In the scramble for the boats Charley thought he had but
little chance for finding a place; and as the ship filled and kept
sinking deeper in the water, an instinct of self-preservation led him
to climb into the rigging. Then up he went, higher and higher, even to
the topmast; and at last, when the vessel went down all at once, he
found himself, to his inexpressible relief, still above the surface.

What most astonished us all was that a boy so young should have been
able to hold on for more than an hour to a slippery mast, exposed to
the fury of the wind, and within reach, even, of the lashing waves. We
sailed home at once to the Isle of Wight, and wrote to the boy's
mother, a widow living in London, to tell her of his safety. The boy
himself stayed with us two or three days, until we bought him new
clothes, and then went to his mother. Great was her joy when she once
more clasped him to her loving heart. My brother-in-law took a great
fancy to him. He has watched his