hout help. I gave a hint to the doctor to look after O'Carroll. "I
am right," I remarked to my friend. "If La Roche is on board, he is
safe under hatches; so the best thing you can do is to turn in, and go
to sleep. You want rest more than any of us."

Led by the surgeon, he went quietly below, and I hoped with soothing
medicine and sleep would be soon all to rights again.

The ship proved to be, not what Kelson had supposed, but a vessel with
free emigrants bound out to the rising town of Sydney, in New South
Wales--a colony generally called Botany Bay, established some few years
before, by Captain Phillips of the navy, chiefly with convicts and the
necessary soldiers to look after them. We had just told our tale, and
the passengers had expressed their sympathy for us, when I heard Jacotot
give a loud cry of dismay. On looking over the side the cause was
explained--the masts of our unhappy little craft were just disappearing
under the surface. This was the natural consequence of our neglecting
to pump her out, and the ship, which was going ahead, dragging her
through the water, when of course it rushed in through her open seams
with redoubled speed. Poor Jacotot tore his hair and wrung his hands,
and wept tears of grief for his wretched craft; but he did not gain as
much sympathy as would have been shown him had he been more quiet,
though our new friends congratulated us the more warmly in having got
out of her before she met her fate. Food and rest quickly set most of
us to rights, and the following day William and Trundle and I were able
to take our places at the cabin table with the rest of the passengers.
O'Carroll was kept in bed with fever, though he had got over his idea
that La Roche was on board. The old gentleman he had mistaken for him
proved to be a minister of the gospel, who had been invited to accompany
a party of the emigrants.

We found that things were not going on in at all a satisfactory way on
board. The master had died before the ship reached the Cape: the first
officer, Mr Gregson, who had now charge, was obstinate and
self-opinionated when sober, and he was very frequently intoxicated; the
second was a stupid fellow and no navigator; and both were jealous of
the third, who was a superior, intelligent young man, and in numerous
ways they did their utmost to annoy him. This accounted for the good
ship, the _Kangaroo_, being very much out of her proper course, which
was far to the sou