freshening.

"Furl the fore-topsail," cried the captain, with a kind of desperation, which indicated his sense of the peril of the brig.

"Ay, ay, sir," shouted the ready mate, who, in anticipation of the order, had manned the halyards, and stationed hands at the sheets and clewlines. "Let go the sheets! clew up—lively! Settle away the halyards! Ready at the bunt-lines—sharp work, boys! Aloft, and furl the topsail!"

"Set the main-staysail!" shouted the captain.

Captain 'Siah was an old-fashioned shipmaster, and the Waldo was an old-fashioned vessel. Everything on board was done promptly and skillfully in the old-fashioned way. The captain knew just where he was as long as he could see any of the objects around him, whether lights or the dark outlines of the rocky islands. His principal fear was, if the brig withstood the shock of the tempest, that she would drift upon some dangerous rocks, which were hidden by the waves after half-tide. They were situated off a large island, whose high, precipitous shores he could just discern, when the lightning illuminated the scene around him. This island and these perilous rocks were dead to leeward of the Waldo, and hardly a mile distant. With the aid of the staysail Captain 'Siah hoped—and only hoped—that he should be able to work his vessel out of the range of these dangers. But before the staysail could be set, and before the fore-topsail could be furled, a violent squall struck the brig. The fore-topsail was blown out of the hands of the four seamen who had gone aloft to secure it. So great was the fury of the tempest that in an instant the well-worn sail was torn into ribbons, and great pieces of it were blown away, like little white clouds played upon by the lightning. Worse than this, two of the men on the topsail-yard were wrenched from their hold on the spar, and hurled into the darkness beneath them, one falling into foaming waters, and the other striking senseless upon the deck.

Vainly, for a time, the mate, with four men to help him, struggled to set the staysail, upon which depended the safety of the brig from the savage rocks to leeward of her. At last they succeeded stimulated by the hoarse shouts of Captain 'Siah on the quarter-deck, though not till one of the four men had been struck insensible on the deck by the fierce blows of the sheet-block. The sail was hauled out finally by the exertions of the mate. The helmsman met her at the wheel, and the Waldo heeled over till the water poured in over her lee bulwarks. At this moment, the staysail, too flimsy from age to stand the strain upon it, was blown out of the bolt-ropes, with an explosion like a cannon, and went off like a misty cloud into the darkness. The hour of doom seemed to have overtaken the Waldo; but in spite of the misfortunes that overwhelmed her, Captain 'Siah did not abandon hope, or relax his exertions to save the vessel.

"Set the fore-topmast staysail!" hoarsely yelled the captain. "Send four hands aft to set the spanker!"

Captain 'Siah did not know, when he gave this order, that three of his nine hands had been disabled, and the mate sent only three men aft, one of whom told the captain of the accident. But the passenger was as zealous and willing as even the mate. In order to save his canvas, the captain ordered the spanker to be balance-reefed. The stops were taken off, and the master assisted in the work with his own hands.

"Jam your helm hard down!" he cried to the man at the wheel. "If we can get her head up to the wind, we may be able to set these sails."

All hands worked with desperate energy, and it required all their strength to prevent the canvas from being blown out of their hands. The savage wind upon her bare hull and spars had given the brig steerage-way, and when the man at the helm threw the wheel over, the head of the vessel began to come up to the wind. Captain 'Siah was hopeful, and he encouraged the men at the spanker to renewed exertions. He saw that the mate had partially succeeded in setting the head sail, and the chances were certainly much better than they had been a moment before. Perhaps, if no greater calamity than that which came on the wings of the stormy wind had befallen the brig and her crew, she might possibly have been saved.

The shower from the south-west and that from the east, had apparently come together above the devoted vessel. The lightning was more frequent and vivid, the thunder followed each flash almost instantaneously; and Captain 'Siah realized that the clouds were but a short distance above the brig. But he heeded not the booming thunder or the glaring lightning, only as the latter enabled him to see the work upon which the mate and himself were engaged. The captain, aided by the passenger, was lashing the throat of the gaff down to its place, when a heavy bolt of lightning, accompanied at the same instant by a terrific peel of thunder, struck the main-royal mast-head, and leaped down the mast in a lurid current of fire. At the throat of the main-boom it was divided, part of it following the mast down into the cabin and hold, and the rest darting off on the spar, where the captain, the passenger, and three men were at work on the spanker. Every one of them was struck down, and lay senseless on the deck. Even the man at the wheel shared their fate, though no one could know who were killed and who were simply stunned by the shock. The lightning capriciously leaped from the boom to the metal work of the wheel, shattering the whole into a thousand pieces, and splintering the rudder-head as though it had been so much glass.

The rudder was disabled, the fore-topmast staysail was rent into ribbons, and the brig fell off into the trough of the sea, where she rolled helplessly at the mercy of the tempest.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAST OF THE WALDO.

The storm which swept over the waters of the lower bay, lashing them into a wild fury, and piling up the angry waves upon them, was not merely a squall; it was a hurricane, which raged for half an hour with uninterrupted violence. From the time the tempest struck the Waldo, she had been drifting towards the dangerous rocks; and when the wheel and rudder-head were shattered, the vessel became unmanageable. Six men, including the captain and the passenger, lay paralyzed on the quarter-deck. There were only three left—the mate, the steward, and one seaman. When the steering apparatus was disabled, the brig fell off, and rushed madly before the hurricane, towards the dangerous reefs. The rain had been pouring down in torrents for a few moments, but little cared the seamen for that which could not harm the vessel.

Harvey Barth was not, and did not pretend to be, a sailor. When the storm burst upon the vessel, he retired to the galley. When the moments of peril came, he was alarmed at first; but then he felt that he had only a few months, or a year or two at most, of life left to him, and he tried to be as brave as the sailors who were doing there utmost to save the brig from destruction. Perhaps it would have been a pleasure to him in the last days of his life to do some noble deed; but there was only the drudgery of the common sailor to be done. He saw the man from the topsail yard strike heavily upon the deck. He dragged him into the galley, but he seemed to be dead. The steward had tender feelings, and he tried to do something to restore the unconscious sailor. While he was thus engaged, the mate summoned him to assist in setting the fore-topmast staysail. He obeyed the call, though it