deck, and were now gazing, with blank faces, upon the
inhospitable coast.

"Are we going ashore?" asked Dick.

"Ay," said Lawless, "unless we get first to the bottom."

And just then the ship rose so languidly to meet a sea, and the water
weltered so loudly in her hold, that Dick involuntarily seized the
steersman by the arm.

"By the mass!" cried Dick, as the bows of the Good Hope reappeared above
the foam, "I thought we had foundered, indeed; my heart was at my
throat."

In the waist, Greensheve, Hawksley, and the better men of both companies
were busy breaking up the deck to build a raft; and to these Dick joined
himself, working the harder to drown the memory of his predicament. But,
even as he worked, every sea that struck the poor ship, and every one of
her dull lurches, as she tumbled wallowing among the waves, recalled him
with a horrid pang to the immediate proximity of death.

Presently, looking up from his work, he saw that they were close in below
a promontory; a piece of ruinous cliff, against the base of which the sea
broke white and heavy, almost overplumbed the deck; and, above that,
again, a house appeared, crowning a down.

Inside the bay the seas ran gayly, raised the Good Hope upon their
foam-flecked shoulders, carried her beyond the control of the steersman,
and in a moment dropped her, with a great concussion, on the sand, and
began to break over her half-mast high, and roll her to and fro. Another
great wave followed, raised her again, and carried her yet farther in;
and then a third succeeded, and left her far inshore of the more
dangerous breakers, wedged upon a bank.

"Now, boys," cried Lawless, "the saints have had a care of us, indeed.
The tide ebbs; let us but sit down and drink a cup of wine, and before
half an hour ye may all march me ashore as safe as on a bridge."

A barrel was broached, and, sitting in what shelter they could find from
the flying snow and spray, the shipwrecked company handed the cup around,
and sought to warm their bodies and restore their spirits.

Dick, meanwhile, returned to Lord Foxham, who lay in great perplexity and
fear, the floor of his cabin washing knee-deep in water, and the lamp,
which had been his only light, broken and extinguished by the violence of
the blow.

"My lord," said young Shelton, "fear not at all; the saints are plainly
for us; the seas have cast us high upon a shoal, and as soon as the tide
hath somewhat ebbed, we may walk ash