e was hopeless. At all events, they all went
under with the doomed yacht, and nothing was left in the wake of the
leviathan but a track of foam on the mist-encumbered sea.

But they were not lost! One after another the wrecked party rose
struggling to the surface, and all of them could swim except the boy.

Giles Jackman was the first who rose. Treading water and brushing the
hair out of his eyes, he gazed wildly about. Barret came up close
beside him, almost a moment later. He had barely taken breath, when the
others rose at various distances. A cry not far from him caused him to
turn. It was poor Robin Tips, struggling for life. A few powerful
strokes carried Barret alongside. He got behind the boy, caught him
under the armpits, and thus held him, at arm's length, until he could
quiet him.

"There is a spar, thank God! Make for it, Barret, while I see to Quin,"
shouted Jackman.

As he spoke, they could hear the whistle of the steamer rushing away
from them.

Barret, forcing himself breast-high out of the water, glanced quickly
round, and caught sight of the floating spar, to which his companion had
referred. Although only a few yards off, the fog rendered it almost
invisible.

"Are you quiet now?" demanded Barret, in a stern voice, for the
terrified boy still showed something like a hysterical determination to
turn violently round, and grasp his rescuer in what would probably have
turned out to be the grip of death.

"Yes, sir, oh! yes. But d-don't let me go! M-mind, I can't swim!"

"You are perfectly safe if you simply do nothing but what I tell you,"
returned Barret, in a quiet, ordinary tone of voice, that reassured the
poor lad more than the words.

By way of reply he suddenly became motionless, and as limp as a dead
eel.

Getting gradually on his back, and drawing Tips slowly on to his chest,
so that he rested with his mouth upwards, and his head entirely out of
the water, Barret struck out for the spar, swimming thus on his back.

On reaching it, he found to his surprise that it was the experimental
raft, and that the captain, Mabberly, and McGregor were already clinging
to it.

"Won't bear us all, I fear," said Mabberly; "but thank God that we have
it. Put the boy on."

In order to do this, Barret had to get upon the raft, and he found that
it bore him easily as well as the boy.

"Have you seen Jackman?" asked Mabberly.

"Yes," replied Barret, rising and looking round.

"Here