nies. As the blades struck the
dark water, it flashed fire, and the tracks of the boats resembled
two sea-snakes writhing with silent undulations through a lake of
quicksilver.

It had been a sort of race hitherto, and the rowers, with set teeth and
compressed lips, had pulled stroke for stroke. At last the foremost
boat came to a sudden pause. Best gave a cheery shout and passed her,
steering straight into the broad track of crimson that already reeked on
the sea ahead.

"What is it?" he cried.

But he heard only a smothered curse from Frere, and then his consort
pulled hard to overtake him.

It was, in fact, nothing of consequence--only a prisoner "giving in".

"Curse it!" says Frere, "What's the matter with you? Oh, you, is
it?--Dawes! Of course, Dawes. I never expected anything better from such
a skulking hound. Come, this sort of nonsense won't do with me. It isn't
as nice as lolloping about the hatchways, I dare say, but you'll have to
go on, my fine fellow."

"He seems sick, sir," said (with) compassionate bow.

"Sick! Not he. Shamming. Come, give way now! Put your backs into it!"
and the convict having picked up his oar, the boat shot forward again.

But, for all Mr. Frere's urging, he could not recover the way he had
lost, and Best was the first to run in under the black cloud that hung
over the crimsoned water.

At his signal, the second boat came alongside.

"Keep wide," he said. "If there are many fellows yet aboard, they'll
swamp us; and I think there must be, as we haven't met the boats," and
then raising his voice, as the exhausted crew lay on their oars, he
hailed the burning ship.

She was a huge, clumsily-built vessel, with great breadth of beam, and
a lofty poop-deck. Strangely enough, though they had so lately seen the
fire, she was already a wreck, and appeared to be completely deserted.
The chief hold of the fire was amidships, and the lower deck was one
mass of flame. Here and there were great charred rifts and gaps in her
sides, and the red-hot fire glowed through these as through the bars of
a grate. The main-mast had fallen on the starboard side, and trailed a
blackened wreck in the water, causing the unwieldy vessel to lean
over heavily. The fire roared like a cataract, and huge volumes of
flame-flecked smoke poured up out of the hold, and rolled away in a
low-lying black cloud over the sea.

As Frere's boat pulled slowly round her stern, he hailed the deck again
and again.