ind us there, at all events," he exclaimed.

"I wonder we didn't think of that before," said Tom, and they
immediately carried out Gerald's suggestion. Mr Large had some
difficulty in creeping under it, and very nearly brought the canoe down
upon himself, but by choosing the broadest part he found sufficient room
to lie on his back; while Tom took one end and Gerald the other. Though
the birds screamed as loudly as ever, the canoe-wrecked party knew that
they were perfectly safe, and could afford to laugh at them. However,
they soon went to sleep and forgot all about the matter. They might
have slept on till the middle of the next day, as there was no one to
call them, had not Tom been awakened by the pangs of hunger; when,
starting up, forgetting where he was, he gave his head such a thundering
knock against the bottom of the canoe that the noise awakened Desmond,
who did precisely the same thing. When the boatswain, giving a heave
with his body, turned over the canoe, they discovered that the sun had
already risen several degrees above the horizon.

"Here's a pretty kettle of fish to fry, as my missus would say,"
exclaimed Mr Large, as he sat up rubbing his eyes; "we ought to have
been on board by daybreak, and here we are as if we were upon leave for
a month."

"I only wish we'd something for breakfast," exclaimed Desmond, as he got
on his legs; "we shall have to breakfast on the raw birds after all."

"Look out there, young gentlemen, where we left the ship--what's become
of her?" cried Mr Large.

The midshipmen looked round with dismay; the ship was certainly not
where she had been. "I can't make it out," he exclaimed; "if she's gone
I ought to have gone with her, and a pretty scrape I am in. It won't
matter so much for you young gentlemen, as, of course, it will all be
laid to my door; and here we are now without a drop of rum, or a drop of
water to mix with it, or anything more eatable than raw, fishy geese.
We shouldn't starve if we were left here for a week, but we should
suffer pretty severely from want of water."

"I hope that we shall not have to wait here for a week," said Tom; "and
as it seems to me that the surf has gone down, I think the sooner we
load the canoe and go in search of the ship the better, since she
doesn't come in search of us."

Tom's proposal was at once agreed to, it being evident that the surf had
considerably gone down. The only objection to shoving off was the want
of