direction to any stranger that should fall in with
it: secured the cork with melted sealing-wax,
tied oilskin over it and melted wax on that;
applied a preparation to the glass to close the
pores: and to protect it against other accidents,
and attract attention, fastened a black painted
bladder to it by a stout tarred twine, and painted
"Agra, lost at sea," in white on the bladder.
He had logged each main incident of the storm
with that curt, business-like, accuracy, which
reads so cold and small a record of these great
and terrible tragedies. He now made a final
entry a little more in character with the situation:
"About eight bells in the morning watch
shipped a heavy sea forward. The rudder being
now damaged, and the ship hardly manageable,
brought the log and case on deck, expecting to
founder shortly. Sun and moon hidden this
two days, and no observation possible; but by
calculation of wind and current, we should be
about fifty miles to the southward of the
Mauritius. God's will be done."

He got on deck with the bottle in his pocket,
and the bladder peeping out: put the log, and
its case, down on deck, and by means of the
life-lines crawled along on his knees, and with
great difficulty, to the wheel. Finding the man
could hardly hold on, and dreading another sea,
Dodd, with his own hands, lashed him to the
helm.

While thus employed, he felt the ship give a
slight roll, a very slight roll to windward. His
experienced eye lightened with hope, he cast his
eager glance to leeward. There it is a sailor
looks for the first spark of hope. Ay, thereaway
was a little, little gleam of light. He patted
the helmsman on the shoulder and pointed to it;
for now neither could one man speak for the
wind, nor another hear. The sailor nodded
joyfully.

Presently the continuous tornado broke into
squalls.

Hope grew brighter.

But, unfortunately, in one furious squall the
ship broke round off so as to present her quarter
to the sea at an unlucky moment: for it came
seven deep again, a roaring mountain, and
hurled itself over her stern and quarter. The
mighty mass struck her stern frame with the
weight of a hundred thousand tons of water, and
drove her forward as a boy launches his toy-boat
on a pond; and, though she made so little
resistance, stove in the dead lights and the port
frames, burst through the cabin bulkheads, and
washed out all the furniture, and Colonel
Kenealy in his nightgown with a table in his
arms borne on water three feet deep; and
carried him under the poop awning away to
the lee quarter deck scuppers; and flooded
the lower deck. Above, it swept the quarter
deck clean of everything except the shrieking
helmsman; washed Dodd away like a cork,
and would have carried him overboard if he
had not brought up against the mainmast and
grasped it like grim death, half drowned, half
stunned, sorely bruised, and gasping like a
porpoise ashore.

He held on by the mast in water and foam,
panting. He rolled his despairing eyes around:
the bulwarks fore and aft were all in ruins, with
wide chasms, as between the battlements of
some decayed castle: and through the gaps he
saw the sea yawning wide for him. He dare
not move: no man was safe a moment, unless
lashed to mast or helm. He held on, expecting
death. But presently it struck him he could see
much farther than before. He looked up: it
was clearing overhead; and the uproar abating
visibly. And now the wind did not decline as
after a gale; extraordinary to the last, it blew
itself out.

Sharpe came on deck, and crawled on all
fours to his captain, and helped him to a
life-line. He held on by it, and gave his
orders. The wind was blown out; but the
sea was as dangerous as ever. The ship
began to roll to windward. If that was not
stopped, her fate was sealed. Dodd had the
main trysail set, and then the fore trysail,
before he would yield to go below, though
drenched, and sore, and hungry, and worn out.
Those sails steadied the ship; the sea began to
go down by degrees; the celestial part of nature
was more generous: away flew every cloud,
out came the heavenly sky bluer and lovelier
than ever they had seen it: the sun flamed
in its centre. Nature, after three days' eclipse,
was so lovely: it seemed a new heavens and
a new earth. If there was an infidel on
board who did not believe in God, now his
soul felt Him, in spite of the poor little
head: as for Dodd, who was naturally pious,
he raised his eyes towards that lovely sky in
heartfelt, though silent, gratitude to its maker
for saving the ship and cargo and her people's
lives, not forgetting the private treasure he
was carrying home to his dear wife and children.

With this thought, he naturally looked down:
but missed the bladder that had lately
protruded from his pocket; he clapped his hand
to his pocket all in a flutter. The bottle
was gone. In a fever of alarm and anxiety,
but with good hopes of finding it, he searched
the deck: he looked in every cranny, behind
every coil of rope the sea had not carried
away.

In vain.

The sea, acting on the buoyant bladder
attached, had clearly torn the bottle out of
his pocket, when it washed him against the
mast. His treasure then must have been
driven much farther: and how far? Who could
tell?

It flashed on the poor man with fearful
distinctness that it must either have been picked
up by somebody in the ship ere now, or else
carried out to sea.

Strict inquiry was made amongst the men.

No one had seen it.

The fruit of his toil and prudence, the treasure
Love, not Avarice, had twined with his heart-strings;
was gone. In its defence he had
defeated two pirates, each his superior in force;