describe, shot through me, when I thought it might be my comrade
Fred Borders. But these thoughts and feelings passed like lightning--in
a far shorter time than it takes to write them down. The shriek was
still ringing in my ears, when the captain roared--

"Down your helm! stand by to lower away the boats."

At the same moment he seized a light hen-coop and tossed it overboard,
and the mate did the same with an oar in the twinkling of an eye.
Almost without knowing what I did, or why I did it, I seized a great
mass of oakum and rubbish that lay on the deck saturated with oil, I
thrust it into the embers of the fire in the try-works and hurled it
blazing into the sea.

The ship's head was thrown into the wind, and we were brought to as
quickly as possible. A gleam of hope arose within me on observing that
the mass I had thrown overboard continued still to burn; but when I saw
how quickly it went astern, notwithstanding our vigorous efforts to stop
the ship, my heart began to sink, and when, a few moments after, the
light suddenly disappeared, despair seized upon me, and I gave my friend
up for lost.

At that moment, strange to say, thoughts of my mother came into my mind,
but there was no time to be lost, and I threw myself, with a good deal
of energy, into the first boat that was lowered, and pulled at the oar
as if my own life depended on it.

A lantern had been fastened to the end of an oar and set up in the boat,
and by its faint light I could see that the men looked very grave. Tom
Lokins was steering, and I sat near him, pulling the aft oar.

"Do you think we've any chance, Tom?" said I.

A shake of the head was his only reply.

"It must have been here away," said the mate, who stood up in the bow
with a coil of rope at his feet, and a boat-hook in his hand. "Hold on,
lads, did any one hear a cry?"

No one answered. We all ceased pulling, and listened intently; but the
noise of the waves and the whistling of the winds were all the sounds we
heard.

"What's that floating on the water?" said one of the men, suddenly.

"Where away?" cried every one eagerly.

"Right off the lee-bow--there, don't you see it?"

At that moment a faint cry came floating over the black water, and died
away in the breeze.

The single word "Hurrah!" burst from our throats with all the power of
our lungs, and we bent to our oars till we well-nigh tore the rollocks
out of the boat.

"Hold hard! stern all!" roared the m