about that blow now? We have money enough
to pay for our passage. Farewell. Lower the
boats there. Captain Ritson, I have the honour
of wishing you a pleasant voyage to heaven."

Captain Ritson made no answer till the boats
were lowered. "God will avenge us, if it
seemeth good to Him," was the only malediction
he uttered. "Men, I thank God that I still
trust in His mercy, and, worst come to the worst,
I am ready to die."

"So am I," said the purser, "if I could only
first look up and see that yellow rascal dangling
at the yard-arm."

"It's all up with us," said the quartermaster.
"I only wish the black villains had given us one
noggin round before they left."

An hour passed, the last sound of the receding
boats had died away. The sailors began to
groan and lament their fate.

"Have you any hope left, Captain Ritson,
now?" said the purser in a melancholy voice.
"Oh, Jenny, Jenny, my dear wife, I shall never
see you again."

"As for my wife," said the quartermaster,
"it's no great loss. I'm thinking more of
myself. Oh, those villains."

"I have no hope," said the captain, bravely,
"but I am ready to die. I trust in the mercy
of God. He will do the best for us, and he
will guard my poor children."

Just then, like a direct answer from Heaven,
the fog grew thinner and thinner, and the sun
shone through with a cold yellow lustre, showing
the line of land for miles; alas! it was not
land, but ice pack, miles of it, rising into
mountainous bergs, green as emerald, blue as
sapphire, golden as crysolite, and stretching a way
into snow plains and valleys. The nearest cliffs
were semi-transparent, and glistened with
prismatic colours, but in the distance they merged
again into cold clinging fog. The nearest ice
was about two miles off.

The captain looked at his companions, and
they at him, but they did not speak, their hearts
were so full, for the water could be now heard
gurgling and bubbling upward in the hold.

"We have two hours more to live, and let us
spend it," said the captain, bravely, "in preparing
for death. After all, it is better than dying of
cold and hunger, and it is only the death us sailors
have been taught to expect at any moment."

''I shouldn't care if it was not for my poor
old mother," said one of the sailors "but now
she'll have to go on the parish. Oh, it's hard,
bitter hard."

"Fie, man," said the captain, with his
unquenchable courage, "have I not my children,
and the purser his wife. What must be, must
be- bear it like a man."

At that moment a shrewd boyish face showed
itself round the corner of the cabin stairs, and
the next instant up leaped and danced Harrison,
the ship's boy, with a sharp carving knife in his
hand. He capered for joy round the captain,
and was hailed with a tremendous shout of
delight and welcome as he released the men one
by one, beginning with his master.

"They thought I was in the hold," he said,
"didn't they? But I was hiding under the
captain's sofa all the time, and I lay till I
was sure they were gone. The vessel's filling
fast, Captain Ritson; there is no time to lose.
Hurrah!"

"It is quite true," said the purser, as he
returned from below with the captain. "We
have one hour, no more, to rig a raft in, so to
it, my lads, with a will. The leak's too far gone,
and we've not hands enough to make the pumps
tell on it."

The men were shaking hands all round,
intoxicated with joy at their escape.

"Come men, enough of that. I'm a plain man,
and what I say I mean," said the captain, already
himself. "We're not out of the wood yet, so
don't holler. Come, set to at the raft, and get
all the biscuits and junk those villains have left.
I shall be the last man to leave the wessel,
I shan't leave her at all till she begins to settle
down. Purser, get some sails for tents.
Quartermaster, you look to the grub. Harrison, you
collect the spars for the men; Davis, you see
the work is strong and sure. It isn't the coast
I should choose to land on; but any port in a
storm, you know; and, purser, you get two or
three muskets and some powder and shot. We
may have to live on sea birds for a day or two,
till God sends us deliverance, death, or a ship;
that is our alternative. Come, to work."

The raft was made in no time. But the stores
proved scanty. The scoundrel mate had thrown
overboard, spoiled, or carried off, all but three
days' provision of meat, biscuit, and rum. The
captain had almost to be forced from the vessel.
They had not got half a mile away when the
great ice pack closed upon it, just as she was
sinking. As the Shooting Star slowly settled
down, Captain Ritson took off his cap and stood
for a moment bareheaded.

"There," said he, "goes as good a wessel
as ever passed the Mersey lights; as long as
she floated she'd have done Messrs. David and
Blizzard credit."

"Good-bye old Shooting Star," said the men.
"If ever a man deserved the gallows, it's that
first mate of ours."

The raft reached the shore safely.

"I take possession of this 'ere floating pack,"
said the captain, good humouredly, to keep up
the men's spirits, as he leaped on the ice, "in
the name ot her blessed Majesty, and I beg to
christen it Ritson's Island, if it is an island;
but if it is joined on to the mainland, we'll wait
and see what the mainland is. I wonder if
there are many bears, or puffins, or white foxes
on it. And now let's rig the tents, and then
we'll measure out the food."

The next day brought no hope. The pack
proved to be of enormous size, and a deep ice-
fog prevented its complete exploration. The food
was fast decreasing. The few penguins on the
pack would not come within shot. Once they
saw a white bear, but it dived, and appeared no
more. The men's hearts began to sink; half
the spars had been used up for the fires; one