eep easily enough afloat, though I was half
drowned with the waves as they swept in from behind me. My mother's
dream cheered me up, for, according to that, it did not seem as I was
to be drowned, whatever was to come afterwards. I drifted past the
wreck within a hundred yards or so. They were still burning blue
lights; but the sea made a clean sweep over her, and I saw that in a
very few minutes she would go to pieces. Many times as the seas broke
over me I quite gave up hope of reaching shore; but I was a fair
swimmer, and the bottles buoyed me up, and I struggled on.

I could see the fire on shore, but the surf that broke against the
rocks showed a certain death if I made for it, and I tried hard to
work to the left, where I could see no breaking surf. It seemed to me
that the fire was built close to the end of the island. As I came
close I found that this was so. I drifted past the point of land not
fifty feet off, where the waves were sending their spray a hundred
feet up; then I made a great struggle, and got in under the lee of the
point. There was a little bay with a shelving shore, and here I made a
shift to land. Five minutes to rest, and then I made my way towards
the fire. There was no one there, and I went to the edge of the rocks.
Here four or five men with ropes were standing, trying to secure some
of the casks, chests, and wreckage from the ship. The surf was full of
floating objects, but nothing could stand the shock of a crash against
those rocks. The water was deep alongside, and the waves, as they
struck, flew up in spray, which made standing almost impossible.

The men came round me when they saw me. There was no hearing one speak
in the noise of the storm; so I made signs I had landed behind the
point, and that if they came with their ropes to the point they might
get something as it floated past. They went off, and I sat down by the
fire, wrung my clothes as well as I could,--I thought nothing of the
wet, for one is wet through half the time in a fishing-boat,--took off
mother's belt, and found one of the bottles had broke as I got ashore;
but luckily it was the one which was quite empty. I got the cork out
of the other, and had a drink of brandy, and then felt pretty right
again. I had good hopes the boat was all right, for she would get
round the point easy, and Jabez would bring her up under the lee of
the island. I thought I would go and see if I could help the others,
and perhaps save someon