t, "though I cannot say that I
anticipate much pleasure in passing the night in a close cabin with a
tipsy skipper snoring as loud as a grampus."

"Not pleasant, certainly," remarked the Baron; "and I am ready to
sacrifice myself for your benefit, if our friend here will take me on
shore and wait for me while I search for an hotel; whether I find one or
not, I will come back to you."

The Count gladly agreed to this proposal; and the sober sailor,
launching the boat, at once put off with the Baron, intending, as he
said, to land him at a quay at no great distance. The Count walked the
deck impatiently waiting his return; and, as he heard the skipper and
the man forward snoring, he began to regret that he had not himself also
gone. The sober sailor and the Baron were a long time absent.

"What can have become of them?" exclaimed the Count, over and over
again. He had sat down to rest in the after part of the vessel, when he
saw some one moving forward; and, going in that direction, he discovered
the sailor who had been asleep.

"What are you about there?" he asked.

"Giving more scope to the cable," was the answer. "The tide has risen,
and the sloop wants it."

"All right, I suppose," thought the Count, and he went aft, while the
sailor descended, and was soon again fast asleep. The Count heard a
noise such as rope makes when running over wood. Presently he observed
that the objects, dimly seen through the gloom of night, were moving.
"What can have happened?" he thought. Faster and faster they moved.
The vessel appeared to be in a rapid current.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! what is happening?" he cried out; and he shouted to
the skipper and the man forward, but neither answered him. Presently
the vessel struck against the side of a house which rose out of the
water, then against a pier, then she bounded off, then once more she
came with tremendous force against another house, which appeared to be a
store, carrying away her bowsprit. "She will go to the bottom, and I
shall be drowned," thought the Count; and he scrambled up the rigging
just as the head of the mast poked its way in at a large opening in the
wall. Climbing the shrouds of a vessel was a feat the Count had never
before accomplished, and was very contrary to his habits; but he exerted
himself to the utmost. The unpleasant recollection came upon him, as he
was doing so, that these were the shrouds which had been severed when
the ship ran into the s