ficers, as upon this would to a very great extent depend their
ultimate safety.

His address was responded to with a ringing cheer; after which the
occupants of the various boats subsided into silence and sat watching
the burning ship.

The _Galatea_ was by this time a mass of flame fore and aft. Her masts
were gone, her decks had fallen in, and her hull above water was in
several places red-hot; while as she rolled heavily on the long swell,
burying her heated sides gunwale-deep in the water, great clouds of
steam rose up like the smoke of a broadside, and hid her momentarily
from view.

The fire continued to blaze more and more fiercely as it spread among
the cargo, until about a couple of hours after the boats had left the
ship, when the intense and long-continued heat appeared to cause some
rivets to give way, or to destroy some of the iron plates; for a great
gap suddenly appeared in the _Galatea's_ side, a long strip of plating
curling up and shrivelling away like a sheet of paper, and momentarily
revealing the white-hot contents of the glowing told; then the water
poured in through the orifice; there was a sudden upbursting of a vast
cloud of steam accompanied by a mighty hissing sound; the hull appeared
to writhe like a living thing in mortal agony; and then--darkness upon
the face of the waters. The scorched and distorted shell of iron which
had once been as gallant a ship as ever rode the foam was gone from
sight for ever.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

AT THE MERCY OF WIND AND WAVE.

The silence which followed the disappearance of the _Galatea_ was broken
by a plaintive wail from little May, who sobbed out that she was "Oh! so
sorry that poor papa's beautiful ship was all burned up."

Her sorrows, however, were speedily charmed away by the representation
made to her by her mother that if the ship had not been burnt they would
probably never have thought of going for a delightful sail in the boats,
as they now were; and soon afterwards the poor overtired child fell into
a deep dreamless sleep in her mother's arms.

As everything had been made ready in the launch before she left the
ship's side, the ladies had now nothing to do but make themselves
thoroughly comfortable for the night on and among the blankets and skin
rugs which had been arranged for them in the stern-sheets.

A cosy enough little cabin, of necessarily very limited dimensions, was
also arranged in the bows of the boat for the gentlemen; and