p's course once more due east for Australia.

And the _Sea Rover_ went on her way.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER THREE.

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

Half-drowned by the avalanche of water which had swept him overboard,
and just catching one faint glimpse of the hull of the ship through eyes
that were blinded with the spray, as it swept away from him and left him
struggling with the waves, although holding on still to the top of the
wheelhouse which he had clutched in desperation as he was carried away,
Davy thought he was dreaming when he heard the voice of his friend
shouting out, as if in the distance, miles and miles away, "Hold on,
Dave, I'm coming!"

"Nonsense," he reasoned with himself, amidst the pitiless lash of the
billows, and the keenness of the wind that seemed to take the skin off
his face and pierce through his wet clothing as he was one minute soused
down into the water and then raised aloft again on his temporary raft
exposed to the full force of the blast. "Nonsense! I'm drowning, I
suppose, and this is one of those pleasant dreams which people say come
to one at the last."

It was no dream, however.

After a little while, although it seemed ages to David, the voice
sounded nearer.

"Hold on, Dave, old boy. I'm quite close to you now, and will reach you
in a minute!"

"I can't be dreaming," thought David again, getting a bit over the
feeling of suffocation which had at first oppressed him. "Jonathan's
voice sounds too real for that, and I can see that I am adrift on the
ocean, and resting on something. Oh, how my leg hurts me! I'll give a
hail, and see whether it is Jonathan's voice or not that I hear. It
must be him!"

"Ahoy, help, ahoy!" he sang out as loudly as he could; but he was
already weak, his voice came only in a faint whisper to Jonathan, who
imagined he must be sinking and he would be too late.

"Keep up, Dave, for goodness' sake," screamed out the latter in agony,
making desperate exertions to reach him. "Don't give way! Hold on a
second longer and you'll be safe!"

Although he was such a slight, delicate-looking little fellow, hardly
doing justice in his appearance to his sixteen years, if there was one
accomplishment in which Johnny Liston was a proficient, it was swimming.
Living in the neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens, he had made a habit
of going into the Serpentine every morning during the summer months, and
sticking at it as long as the weather permitted, although h