hide our comrades from our eyes. In the teeth of the
elements, however, the captain was bearing up towards the other boat,
and it was now and then quite possible to see with the naked eye that
she was upside down, and that a man was clinging to her keel. At such
glimpses an inarticulate murmur ran through our midst, but for the most
part we, who were only watching, were silent till the whaleboat was
fairly alongside of the object of her gallant expedition. Then by good
luck the moon sailed forth and gave us a fair view, but it was rather a
disappointing one, for the two boats seemed to do nothing but bob about
like two burnt corks in the moonlight, and we began to talk again.

"What's she doing?"--"The LORD knows!"--"Something's gone wrong."--"Why
doesn't she go nearer?"--"'Cos she'd be stove in, ye fool!"--"Gude save
us! they're both gone."--"Not they, they're to the left; but what the
winds and waves they're after ----"--"They're trying to make him hear,
likely enough, and they might as well call on my grandmother. He's as
dead as a herring."--"Whisht! whisht! He's a living soul! Hech, sirs!
there's nought but the grip o' despair would haud a man on the keel of
's boat in waves like yon."--"Silence, all!"

We turned our heads, for a voice rang from the look-out--

"Man overboard from the whaleboat!"

The men were so excited, and crowded so together, that I could hardly
find a peeping-place.

"He's got him."--"Nay, they're both gone."--"Man! I'm just thinking that
it's ill interfering with the designs of Providence. We may lose Peter
and not save Paul."--"Stow your discourses, Sandy!"--"They're hauling in
our man, and time they did."

The captain's voice now called to the first mate--

"Do you make it one or both, Mr. Waters?"

"_Both_, sir!"

"Thank GOD!"

We hurrahed again, and the whaleboat-men replied--but their cheer only
came faintly to us, like a wail upon the wind.

Several men of our group were now called to work, and I was ordered
below to bring up a hammock, and swing it in the steerage. I was vexed,
as I would have given anything to have helped to welcome the whaleboat
back.

When the odd jobs I had been called to were done with, and I returned to
the deck, it was just too late to see her hauled up. I could not see
over the thick standing group of men, and I did not, of course, dare to
push through them to catch sight of our heroes and the man they had
saved. But a little apart from the rest,