they sat on the deck in the dusk discussing matters. "We'll take a little tenement down in the working quarters. You'll housekeep, Sadie, and we four will go and earn dollars. Gee! There's no frightening me. This thing was beginning to get on top of me, and bear me down; but now, not a bit of it. I'll win out; one of these days I'll own a salvage plant of my own."

It is better to face difficulties brightly and with full courage than tackle them half-heartedly. Jim felt all the stronger for his courage, and paced the deck alone that night with hopes raised, and with full assurance for the future.

"I'll get a widow woman, or someone respectable like that, to come and help Sadie keep house," he said to himself. "It'll be company for her while I'm away. And of course there's her education: she'll have to have more schooling. We've rather forgotten that she's still only a child, for she behaves as if she were grown up."

That was, indeed, one of the pathetic items in the history of Jim's family. His father, Silas, had been pressed as it were into a course of action which meant a sudden cessation of all home life for Sadie, and which brought the child amongst grown-up men when she should have been at school, with some of her own sex about her, and playmates to romp with. Circumstances had, in fact, acted adversely both for Silas and his daughter.

"But we'll alter all that," Jim told himself. "Heigho! I'm for turning in."

He paced the deck once or twice more, then crept down the companion. He was nearing the bottom, when his progress was suddenly arrested by a shout.

"What's that?" he wondered. "Came from right forward."

Curiosity caused him to run nimbly up the steps again. His head was just emerging from the opening when the shout was repeated, while it was taken up instantly by men above his head, on the bridge of the ship. At the same moment there came the tinkle of the engine telegraph.

"Port! Port your helm! Hard a port!" he heard the lookout shout from his post on the forecastle. "Ship ahead! Port your helm!"

"Hard astern, Mr. Dingle! hard astern!" came in steady but sharp tones from the bridge, then there followed once more the tinkle of the telegraph. Jim felt the tremble and throb of the engines suddenly die down; indistinct shouts came to him from somewhere in the interior of the coaster. Then the engine throbs recurred furiously, as if the ship were making a frantic effort. Crash!

He was thrown hard against the combing of the gangway, his head striking the woodwork heavily, so that he was partially stunned. That and the succeeding jar, as the coaster came end on into the bows of another steamer, toppled Jim over. He lost his foothold, and rolled down the steps into the gangway down below. Then he picked himself up, feeling dazed and giddy, and for a moment held tight to a pillar supporting the deck.

"A collision," he told himself. "A bad one too—full tilt into one another. It's shaken the electric light out. Lucky they keep an emergency oil lamp going."

The temptation to dash up on deck was strong within him, and had he been alone on the vessel, with none to care for, no doubt he would have obeyed the inclination. But there was Sadie; Jim was her protector. He dashed at once towards her cabin, and came upon her at the doorway, looking frightened.

"There's been a collision, Sadie, dear," he said, endeavouring to keep his voice quiet. "Guess we may have to move; let me come in and fix you."

The child was not undressed, fortunately, and Jim at once pushed into the cabin, groped for one of the cork life preservers which are placed in overhead racks, and adjusted it to her body.

"Now," he said, "bring a warm coat, and leave the other things. Ah, here's Tom!"

"Sah; me here, right enough. You's not hurt, nor missie?"

"Not a scratch, Tom. Just take Sadie right up on deck and stand beside her. That Sam?"

In the dusk outside there was a second figure, and behind that another. The faithful negroes, and Ching Hu, the Chinaman, had rallied at once to their youthful master.

"Me, in course," cried the little Sam. "Guess this here's a collision. But we ain't got no cause to mind; not at all, not at all, missie."

"Get life belts, put them on, and then go on deck," said Jim shortly. "Sadie, take charge of this bag of dollars. I'm going up to see what's happened."

Conscious that he had done all that was possible, and that Sadie was now in excellent hands, he turned and made for the companion, directing Tom to take the whole party on deck, and wait for him near the companion. With a few active steps he was there himself, and able to look about him. There was a slight sea fog enveloping the ship, through which, a hundred yards away, shone the lights of a steamer. Shouts came from her deck, while her siren was blowing frantically. On board the craft on which he himself stood there was also considerable noise and confusion. A couple of lights were swaying right forward, and running there Jim saw that a man was being slung over the bows in a rope's end. Right aft, where were quarters for steerage passengers, there was the sound of many voices, shouts, and hoarse cries of alarm, and once the shrill shriek of a woman.

"How'd it happen?" he asked one of the deck hands standing near him.

"How do most of these here things happen, siree?" came the answer. "This here fog did it. The lookouts war bright enough; but reckon the two ships jest bumped clean into the same course, and didn't see one another till their bows was touchin'. We're holed badly, I'm thinking. You take my advice, and get hold of your traps."

Jim leaned over the rail, and stared at the man swinging in the rope's end. The lantern he carried showed a huge rent in the bows of the ship, while the sound of rushing water came to his ears.

"Six feet by five, down under the water line, mostly," came from the man. "You'd better be slinging me over a sailcloth or something, or else the water'll fill her."

"They'll never do it," thought Jim, staring at the rent. "I've been enough on board ships to know what this means. I'll get back and see that Sadie's safe."

He ran back to the companion, where he discovered his friends seated on the hatchway.

"Tom," he said, "come along below with me. We shall have to take to the boats, and the sooner we've food with us the better. Lead along to the galley."

"Purser's store, sah; I knows very well. You say we gwine ter leave de ship."

"She's holed badly; she's bound to founder, I guess."

"Den de Lor' help us!" groaned Tom. "You listen here, sah. Forty Spaniard workmen living aft. Dey play de dickens. Dey fight for de boats. Not like dat at all. Tom say dat dere be trouble."

The mention of the men who had taken passage aft caused Jim some amount of perturbation. He had noticed them as he came aboard, and it was because of their presence on the ship that he had taken passage for himself and Sadie amidships.

"I'd have gone steerage with her had it not been for those dagoes," he had told himself. "There's little enough money to spare nowadays for luxuries; but they're a rough crowd, and I wouldn't like Sadie to be amongst them."

It had followed that he and Sadie had taken berths amidships, while Tom and Sam and Ching had, as a natural course, got places aft. Jim realized, now that Tom reminded him of the fact, that the Spaniards on the ship might prove a greater danger to them than the foundering of the vessel.

"Guess they're a rough crowd, and likely to lose their heads," he said aloud. "Let's get some food quick, Tom, and then see what's happening. We'll keep close together."

They ran along the alley way towards the purser's store, and, finding the door closed, Tom burst it in with a mighty heave from his shoulder. Jim snatched one of the hanging oil lanterns, and together they made a hurried survey of the contents.

"Here's a sack; hold it open, Tom," commanded Jim.

He ran his eyes round the shelves, then,