red, and ever and
anon struck the vessel as if about to batter in her sides, sending the
spray flying over her deck, wetting the crew (who stood holding on to
the bulwarks or rigging) through and through.

There was a loud crash, followed by a groan: the mizen yard had parted,
and, falling, had struck the old master, Captain Snow, to the deck. His
men raised him up; he could not speak. He was carried below, where his
injuries could be looked to.

"Robby, my son, do you and Bill Cuffe go below, and look after the old
man; this is not a night for boys like you to be on deck," said the
elder Starling, who now took the command.

The boys gladly obeyed. Bill Cuffe proposed turning into their berths
to go to sleep; but Robby said, "No! we were told to look after the
captain."

The men, by a sickly light of a lantern, examined the captain's hurts,
as he lay in his berth, but though they could not discover that any limb
was broken, they soon saw that he was beyond their skill. They had,
too, to hurry on deck to help repair the damage to the rigging. Soon
after, Robby and Bill Cuffe heard the men on deck battening down the
hatches; it was a sign that things were becoming even more serious than
at first. The bulkheads below creaked; the seas thumped and thumped
against the sides, and the _Sea-gull_ tumbled and pitched about in every
conceivable manner.

"What's going to happen? ain't we all going to the bottom?" asked Bill.
"What shall we do, Robby?"

"Do our duty, Bill, whatever happens, as the missionary told us this
morning; and pray to God to take care of us all aboard here," answered
Robby. "We've now to try to help the captain; I think I hear him
speaking."

The boys went to the captain's side. He had returned to consciousness.
"What's happened, boy?" he asked: "I can't move hand or foot." Robby
told him. "God's will be done," he murmured. "Your father'll do his
best--he's a good seaman. He went to service with us this morning. I
wish all had gone."

While he was speaking, the vessel received a more furious blow; then
there was a rushing noise of water overhead, followed by loud crashes
and a few faint shrieks, and then the vessel seemed to bound upwards,
and no other sound was heard but that of the seas which washed against
the sides. The boys clung to each other in terror; something dreadful
had happened, they had been long enough at sea to know that. They
dreaded to ask each other; yet what coul