is great. If I pride
myself on anything, it is that I am aware that I know next to nothing,
and that is what many fools do not."

"Well said, Mac," observed Norman. "I always had a respect for you, and
I have a greater now, and shall have perfect confidence in your skill,
if I should have again to come to you for assistance. I believe I owe
my life to you when I was wounded, as far as I owe it to any human
being."

"Nay, nay," again said the doctor, laughing. "You owe it, to my
thinking, to a fair young lady who looked after you so carefully when we
put you on shore at Waterford--for you were in a bad way then, let me
tell you, though I did not say so at the time."

"He has repaid the debt, doctor, for I understand that the same young
lady was in the house attacked by the rebels, and that they were on the
point of entering it and murdering all the inmates, when he drove them
to the right-about," said Mr Tarwig.

In another tent the master and purser, with the midshipmen, were engaged
in amusing themselves in a more uproarious fashion. Many a merry stave
and sentimental ditty was sung, and not a few yarns were spun, anecdotes
told, and jokes cut, albeit not of the newest. The remainder of the
shipwrecked men having been pretty well worked during the day, soon
turned in, and in spite of the storm raging over their heads went fast
asleep; the only people awake being the sentries, who, wrapped in their
greatcoats, their firelocks sheltered under them, stood with their backs
to the wind.

Thus the night passed away. With the morning light the rain ceased, and
as Norman, who was the first among the officers on foot, looked in the
direction of the spot where the ship had been, she was nowhere to be
seen, but here and there amid the foam-covered reefs fragments of the
wreck could be discerned, tossed about by the tumbling seas. He had
reason to be thankful that such had not been her fate while the crew
were still on board. He was soon joined by Mr Tarwig. He pointed in
the direction of the wreck.

"Our chance of building a craft to carry us away is gone," observed the
first lieutenant, with a sigh. "Well, we must bear our lot patiently,
and maybe some friendly craft may heave in sight. And if a friend does
not come, why, perhaps an enemy will; and if so, we must capture her,
and change places with her crew."

"Little chance of that, I fear," said Norman, who, eager as he was to
get off, had from the first