going down _lives_ might be lost, and other lives
rendered desolate. What then? The "Firm" had nothing to do with that!
The lives embarked in the "Nancy" did not belong to Denham, Crumps, and
Company. If they should go to the bottom, there would be nothing to
lose, and nothing to pay; perhaps a trifle to the widows and children,
that was all! In regard to this also they felt quite at ease.

On the strength of such views and opinions the tackling of the "Nancy"
was allowed to become rotten; the cables and the anchors of the "Nancy"
were economically weak and insufficient; the charts of the "Nancy" were
old and inaccurate, and the "Nancy" herself was in all respects utterly
unseaworthy.

It could scarcely be expected, however, that the operations of Nature
were to be suspended because of the unprepared condition of this vessel;
not to mention hundreds of others in similar condition. The gale
continued to "brew." A stiff breeze carried the "Nancy" down the Thames
towards the open sea; then a sudden calm left her to float without
progressive motion on the water. As evening approached the breeze
sprang up again and freshened. Then it chopped round to the east, and
when night fell it began to blow hard right in the teeth of the little
vessel.

Bax was a good and a bold seaman. He knew the coast well, and hoped, in
due course, to double the North Foreland, and find shelter in the Downs.
He knew the channels and buoys thoroughly, and had often run the same
course in stormy weather. But the gale which now began to buffet the
little schooner was of more than ordinary violence. It was one of those
fierce hurricanes which, once in a year, or, it may be, once in three or
four years, bursts upon our island, strews the coast with wrecks, fills
many homes and hearts with desolation, and awakens the inhabitants of
the inland counties to a slight sense of the terrible scenes that are of
constant occurrence on the shores which form the bulwark of their
peaceful homes.

"We shall have rough weather to-night, I fear," observed Mr Burton,
coming on deck some time after sunset, and addressing Bax; "doubtless
you know the channels well, young sir?"

"I do," replied the sailor, with a peculiar smile. "Twelve years'
experience has not been altogether thrown away on me. I have sailed
these waters in old Jeph's lugger since I was a little boy."

"Is that old Jeph the smuggler, sometimes called the mad philosopher,
from the cir