, a wave came over the poop, and he,
being taken off his guard, was rolled over on the deck and washed
towards the opening in the broken bulwarks.

Kate instantly, without hesitating for a second, made a snatch at his
collar; and, clutching hold of it, in the very nick of time, saved him
by a miracle--had he been carried overboard, no earthly power could have
rescued him!

"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed, "I thought I had lost you!" And, as he
scrambled to his feet, pale with the suddenness of his peril and her
effort to rescue him, the brave girl sank down, apparently lifeless, on
the deck--all of a heap.

"Good heavens, she is dead!" cried Frank. "She has been killed in
trying to save me!" and in the desperation of grief he looked as if he
were going to throw himself into the sea.

"No, no, my boy," said Mr Meldrum, who had witnessed the incident from
the wheel-house, and had now come to his aid; "she has only fainted from
revulsion of feeling and the strain on her nerves. Help me to carry her
below."

And, as the two descended the companion-way with their apparently
inanimate burden, the young sailor could not help furtively kissing the
floating tresses of dark brown hair that swept across his face as he
tenderly supported Kate's head on his shoulder, guarding it jealously in
the passage below. His anxiety was soon afterwards relieved by Mr
Meldrum coming out from the cabin where they had deposited poor Kate,
and telling him that she was getting better.

It was a bad case with the ship, however; worse than anyone thought.

Soon after Frank and Mr Meldrum had left the deck, Ben Boltrope, who
was still in the wheel-house with the Norwegian, called out to Captain
Dinks:-- "I think there's something wrong with the rudder, sir," he
said.

"Wrong with the rudder!" repeated the captain. "What do you mean?" and
he came nearer to look himself at the steering gear.

"Why; the wheel goes round either way, just as you please, without any
strain at all, as if the ropes were parted, or the rudder gone adrift!"

"Mercy on us! That would be a calamity!" exclaimed Captain Dinks; and,
watching his opportunity, when the stern of the ship rose up in the air,
he looked over the rail below. "It is really the case!" he said, in
grave accents. "The rudder and rudder-post have both been carried away.
What a blessing that they did not go before we got her about; if they
had, nothing could have saved us."

"True for you, sir,"