planking was laid bare in a dozen places below the water-line. Then the
augurs were set to work, and in a few minutes a dozen streams of water,
spurting up like fountains, were rushing and gurgling into the ship.

While this was going on in the cabin, the ship's crew, assisted by
others of the revenue men, were removing everything of value on which
they could lay their hands to the deck of the cutter.

Suddenly those in the cabin heard a great cry and a roaring noise on
deck and as they rushed up the companion-way they saw a column of flame
shooting up from the fore-hatch, half-mast high.

Half the people had sprung on board the revenue-cutter as she sheered
off, which she did at the first burst of flame, and now the others
filled the boats, which were quickly lowered and shoved off. As the
boats were being lowered a second burst of flame came from the
main-hatch, and already tongues of fire were lapping the sails and
lofty spars.

Mark had worked with the rest in saving whatever he could lift, and did
not think of leaving the ship until Captain May said,

"Come, Mark, it's time to go. Jump into this boat."

Mark did as he was told, and as Captain May sprang in after him, and
shouted "Lower away!" not a living soul was left on board the
unfortunate vessel.

As the men in the boats rested on their oars, and lay at a safe
distance from the ship, watching the grand spectacle of her
destruction, they saw that she was settling rapidly by the stern. Lower
and lower she sank, and higher and higher mounted the fierce flames,
until, all at once, her bows lifted high out of the water, her stern
seemed to shoot under it, then the great hull plunged out of sight, and
a mighty cloud of smoke and steam rose to the sky. Through this cloud
the flames along the upper masts and yards shone with a lurid red. At
this point the fire-boat arrived; a couple of well-directed streams of
water from her powerful engines soon extinguished these flames, and the
three blackened masts, pointing vaguely upward, were all that remained
to show where, so short a time before, the great ship had floated.

The pilot-boat had already transferred Mrs. Coburn and Ruth and their
baggage to the cutter, and she now steamed up the bay, carrying the
passengers, crew, and all that had been saved from the good ship
Wildfire.

This disaster to his ship, which would have been so terrible had it
happened out at sea instead of almost in port, as it did, obliged