his box from me," he
cried; and down the side I went, needing no second bidding. The box was
carefully passed down to me, and I stowed it away in the stern-sheets.
When I had done so, and looked up at the ship, Captain Harrison was
standing in the gangway with his hat in his hand, looking wistfully and
sorrowfully along the deserted decks and aloft at the jury-spars that,
with their rigging, so pathetically expressed the idea of a mortally
wounded creature gallantly but hopelessly struggling against the death
that was inexorably drawing near. Some such fancy perhaps suggested
itself to him, for I distinctly saw him dash his hand across his eyes
more than once. At length he turned, descended the side-ladder, and,
watching his opportunity, sprang lightly into the boat.

"Shove off, Mr Courtenay!" he ordered, as he wrapped himself in his
boat cloak.

"Shove off!" I reiterated in turn, and forthwith away we went, the men
nothing loath, as I could clearly see, for the ship was now liable to
founder at any moment; indeed the wonder to me was that she remained
afloat so long, for she had by this time sunk so deep that her channels
were completely buried, only showing when she rolled heavily away from
us. Poor old barkie! what a desolate and forlorn object she looked as
we pulled away from her, with little more than her bulwarks showing
above water, with the seas making a clean breach over her bows
continually, as she rolled and plunged with sickening sluggishness to
the great ridges of steel-grey water that incessantly swooped down upon
her and into which her bows, pinned down by the weight of water within
her hull, occasionally bored, as though, tired of the hopeless struggle
for existence, she had at length summoned resolution to take the final
plunge and so end it all. Again and again I thought she was gone, but
again and yet again she emerged wearily and heavily out of the deluges
of water that sought to overwhelm her; but at length an unusually heavy
sea caught her with her bows pinned down after a plunge into the trough;
clear, green, and unbroken it brimmed to her figure-head and poured in a
foaming cataract over her bows, sweeping the whole length of her from
stem to stern until her hull was completely buried. As the wave left
her it was seen that her bows were still submerged, and a moment later
it became apparent that the end had come and she was taking her final
plunge.

"There she goes!" shouted one of th