se with his head above the surface. He turned himself round once
or twice to ascertain that all was right as far as his body was
concerned, and then quietly contented himself with keeping his head as
high above the foam as he well could. He did not think about sharks, or
it might have made him still more uncomfortable. As to swimming after
the ship, that he knew to be an impossibility.

"If I swim at all I shall only tire myself," he thought, so he just
threw himself on his back, and kept his eyes fixed on the ship, as she
flew away from him.

"It will be some time before she can be up to me again," he thought.
"Captain Trevelyan is not the man to desert one of his people, even a
little chap like me, and maybe he will remember what he said to my
mother. If I keep my clothes on me, I shall not be able to float as
long as without them."

Thinking thus, for he did not utter the words aloud, he managed to kick
off one shoe, then the other. He felt lighter without them. The
trousers were next to be got rid of. There was some risk in pulling
them off, lest he might get his feet entangled in them, but a sailor's
trousers are not very large. So Bill managed to draw up one of his legs
and get hold of the foot of the trousers; then he slipped the other leg
quickly out, and off went his trousers after his shoes. His shirt was
the next thing to be rid of, but there was a risk of the tails getting
over his head, so he rolled them up, and then getting one arm clear, in
a twinkling whisked it off, and there he was, floating out in the ocean,
with no more clothes on than when he was born; but he felt much lighter,
and when the seas came roaring round him he kept his head more easily
out of the curling foam. While getting off his clothes, he saw the
life-buoy, with its bright light bursting forth, drop into the water,
but it was too far off for him to attempt to reach it in that troubled
sea. Though, as has been said, he knew his captain too well to dread
that he would desert him, it was a sore trial of his faith to see the
ship sail on and on, till she vanished into gloom. He had seen the ship
wore round several times on different occasions. He knew that was the
way of getting her head in another direction, in such a sea as was now
running.

"The captain will not leave me; no, no fear of that," he thought, and
presently, once more, as if to reward his confidence, he saw the ship
appearing again through the gloom. On s