-mast shot
up into the air. They narrowly escaped from some of the smaller pieces
of the burnt fragments of the ship, which came down on the raft.

"There goes the _Champion_," cried Mr Shobbrok. "It's a sad ending;
but sadder for those will it be who come to look for her, and find only
a blackened wreck floating on the water."

As he spoke, the stern of the ship lifted out of the water, while the
burning bows dipping beneath the surface, she gradually descended into
the depths of the ocean, and ere a minute was over, had disappeared from
sight.

"We may be thankful that we got away in time," sighed the old mate.
"Well, well, I thought we should have got home safely in her; but it was
God's will. We must trust to Him, and not despair, whatever happens."

"I try to do so," said Walter; "but I wish I knew what had become of
dear Alice and our father. If he has not yet visited the ship, it will
well-nigh break his heart when he does come back, to find her gone. He
will think we are all lost."

"If he has not visited the ship, he will not be certain whether she has
gone down,--though, to be sure, that would be almost as bad; for he will
suppose that the scoundrel of a boatswain and the French prisoners have
got possession of her and made off,--knowing to a certainty that we
should never have left the spot till he had returned," answered the
mate.

"Then I hope that he has visited the ship," said Walter; "and now I
think of it, he must have seen the fire at a great distance, and would
have come back as fast as he could. He might easily have passed us in
the dark without seeing us. Perhaps his boat and the other took the
people off, and he has Alice safe with him."

"I don't think that," said the mate; "for from what I observed when I
was on board, I am sure that they must have made a raft. The main and
main-topsail-yards, and all the spare spars on deck, and a good part of
the bulwarks and the hatches and gratings, were gone; had they been
left, I should at all events have seen the burnt ends. I took it in at
a glance, though I did not tell you so at the time."

"But that does not prove that the boats did not visit the ship,"
observed Walter. "They could not carry all the people. I rather think
that my father did come back, and had the raft built under his orders."

"Well, well, lad," answered the mate, "as I said before, we will hope
for the best; and as soon as it is daylight we must set to work and
s