doubt that, caught
and entangled beneath the cloths of the topsail, he was drowned there.

Meanwhile, we were drifting rapidly away to leeward, and the full length
of our warps was almost paid out; it was therefore imperative that the
men on the wreck should act quickly. I shouted to them to this effect,
and, awaking from the momentary stupefaction produced by the painfully
sudden loss of their comrade, the remaining eight men made a dash for
the brig's quarter, and succeeded in reaching it just as the vessel was
uphove upon the crest of another tremendous sea. We saw them slip the
string of life-buoys over their heads, and the next instant they were
buried in the vast volume of water that broke, roaring and hissing, over
the fabric that they stood upon. To our anxious minds it seemed an
endless time before they reappeared; but at length we saw the string of
life-buoys floating in the midst of the lacework of foam, some ten
fathoms to leeward of the wreck, well clear of the heaving spars and
snake-like coils of loose and unrove gear, eight out of the nine buoys
having each a man in it.

"Hurrah!" I shouted, swinging myself on deck out of the rigging. "We
have them! Haul away gently upon the line, and let us get them
alongside."

As I spoke I saw that San Domingo was laying in from the jib-boom end,
he having, like myself, seen that we had got hold of the men; and
presently he ranged up alongside me and, following my example,
industriously set to work to throw the coils of braces, halliards,
clewlines, and so on off the pins, and bend the ends of them into
bowlines in readiness for hauling the rescued men up the side.

The task of getting the poor fellows safely inboard was soon
accomplished, when, administering to each man a pannikin of scalding hot
coffee that had meanwhile been prepared in the galley, I sent them below
into the forecastle with instructions to strip, rub each other well
down, and turn in until a good meal could be prepared for them; when,
the rescued crew being thus temporarily disposed of, we filled upon the
ship and resumed our voyage.

A good substantial meal of beef, potatoes, and ship's bread, backed up
with a few hours' sleep, and a shift into dry clothes, sufficed to set
the rescued men upon their pins again, little or nothing the worse for
the hardship and exposure they had so recently undergone; and that same
evening I obtained from the mate of the brig, a man named Cooper, the
pa