creatures left on the poop cowered screaming
and clinging at Dodd's knees, and fought for a
bit of him.

Yes, as a flood brings incongruous animals
together on some little isle, in brotherhood of fear
—creatures who never met before without one
eating the other; and there they cuddle—so the
thief Ramgolam clung to the man he had tried
to rob; the Hindoo Ayah and the English maid
hustled their mistress, the haughty Mrs. Beresford,
and were hustled by her, for a bit of this
human pillar, and little Murphy and Fred Beresford
wriggled in at him where they could: and
the poor goat crept into the quivering mass
trembling like an aspen, and not a butt left
either in his head or his heart. Dodd stood in
the middle of these tremblers, a rock of
manhood: and when he was silent and they heard
only the voice of the waves, they despaired: and,
whenever he spoke, they started at the astounding
calmness of his voice, and words: and life
sounded possible.

"Come," said he, "this won't do any longer.
All hands into the mizen top!"

He helped them all up, and stood on the
ratlines himself: and, if you will believe me, the
poor goat wailed like a child below. He found
in that new terror and anguish a voice goat was
never heard to speak in before. But they had
to leave him on deck: no help for it. Dodd
advised Mrs. Beresford once more to attempt
the rope: she declined. "I dare not! I dare
not!" she cried, but she begged Dodd hard to
go on it and save himself.

It was a strong temptation: he clutched the
treasure in his bosom; and one sob burst from
the strong man.

That sob was but the tax paid by Nature: for
Pride, Humanity, and Manhood stood staunch
in spite of it. "No, no, I can't," said he: "I
mustn't. Don't tempt me to leave you in this
plight, and be a cur! Live or die, I must be
the last man on her. Here's something coming
out to us, the Lord in Heaven be praised!"

A bright light was seen moving down the
black line that held them to the shore; it
descended slowly within a foot of the billows, and
lighting them up showed their fearful proximity
to the rope in mid passage: they had washed off
many a poor fellow at that part.

"Look at that! Thank Heaven you did not
try it!" said Dodd to Mrs. Beresford.

At this moment a higher wave than usual
swallowed up the light: there was a loud cry
of dismay from the shore, and a wail of despair
from the ship.

No! not lost after all! The light emerged:
and mounted, and mounted towards the ship.

It came near, and showed the black shiny body
of Vespasian with very little on but a handkerchief
and a lantern, the former round his waist,
and the latter lashed to his back: he arrived
with a "Yah! yah!" and showed his white
teeth in a grin.

Mrs. Beresford clutched his shoulder, and
whimpered, " Oh, Mr. Black!"

"Iss, Missy, dis child bring good news.
Cap'n! Massah Fullalove send you his
congratulations, and the compliments of the season;
and take the liberty to observe the tide am turn
in twenty minutes."

The good news thus quaintly announced,
caused an outburst of joy from Dodd, and,
sailor-like, he insisted on all hands joining in a
cheer. The shore re-echoed it directly. And
this encouraged the forlorn band still more; to
hear other hearts beating for them so near.
Even the intervening waves could not quite
annul the sustaining power of sympathy.

At this moment came the first faint streaks of
welcome dawn, and revealed their situation more
fully.

The vessel lay on the edge of a sand-bank.
She was clean in two, the stern lying somewhat
higher than the stem. The sea rolled through
her amidships six feet broad, frightful to look
at; and made a clean breach over her forward,
all except the bowsprit, to the end of which
three poor sailors were now discovered to be
clinging. The afterpart of the poop was out of
water, and in a corner of it the goat crouched
like a rabbit: four dead bodies washed about
beneath the party trembling in the mizen top,
and one had got jammed in the wheel, face
uppermost, and glared up at them, gazing terror-
stricken down.

No sign of the tide turning yet: and much
reason to fear it would turn too late for them,
and the poor fellows shivering on the bowsprit.

These fears were well founded.

A huge sea rolled in, and turned the forepart
of the vessel half over, buried the bowsprit, and
washed the men off into the breakers.

Mrs. Beresford sank down, and prayed, holding
Vespasian by the knee.

Fortunately, as in that vessel wrecked long
syne on Melita, "the hind part of the ship stuck
fast and remained immovable."

But for how long?

Each wave now struck the ship's weather
quarter with a sound like a cannon fired in a
church, and sent the water clean into the mizen
top. It hit them like strokes of a whip. They
were drenched to the skin, chilled to the bone,
and frozen to the heart with fear. They made
acquaintance that hour with Death. Ay, Death
itself has no bitterness that forlorn cluster did
not feel: only the insensibility that ends that
bitterness was wanting.

Now the sea, you must know, was literally
strewed with things out of the Agra; masts,
rigging, furniture, tea-chests, bundles of canes,
chairs, tables: but, of all this jetsom, Dodd's
eye had been for some little time fixed on one
object; a live sailor drifting ashore on a great
wooden case: it struck him after a while that
the man made very little way; and at last seemed
to go up and down in one place. By-and-by he
saw him nearer and nearer, and recognised him.
It was one of the three washed off the
bowsprit.

He cried joyfully: "The tide has turned!
here's Thompson coming out to sea."

Then there ensued a dialogue, incredible to