andkerchief. As none of the
men called out, I judged the signal was not perceptible to the naked
eye; and in my excitement I shouted, "There's a living man on board of
her, my lads!" dropped the glass, and ran aft to call the captain.

I met him coming up the companion ladder. The first thing he said was,
"You're out of your course," and looked up at the sails.

"There's a wreck yonder," I cried, pointing eagerly, "with a man on
board signaling to us."

"Get me the glass," he said sulkily; and I picked it up and handed it
to him.

He looked at the wreck for some moments; and addressing the man at the
wheel, exclaimed, making a movement with his hand, "Keep her away!
Where in the devil are you steering to?"

"Good heaven!" I ejaculated: "there's a man on board--there may be
others!"

"Damnation!" he exclaimed between his teeth: "what do you mean by
interfering with me? Keep her away!" he roared out.

During this time we had drawn sufficiently near to the wreck to enable
the sharper-sighted among the hands to remark the signal, and they were
calling out that there was somebody flying a handkerchief aboard the
hull.

"Captain Coxon," said I, with as firm a voice as I could command,--for
I was nearly in as great a rage as he, and rendered insensible to all
consequences by his inhumanity,--"if you bear away and leave that man
yonder to sink with that wreck when he can be saved with very little
trouble, you will become as much a murderer as any ruffian who stabs a
man asleep."

When I had said this, Coxon turned black in the face with passion. His
eyes protruded, his hands and fingers worked as though he were under
some electrical process, and I saw for the first time in my life a
sight I had always laughed at as a bit of impossible novelist
description,--a mouth foaming with rage. He rushed aft, just over
Duckling's cabin, and stamped with all his might.

"Now," thought I, "they may try to murder me!" And without a word I
pulled off my coat, seized a belaying-pin, and stood ready; resolved
that happen what might, I would give the first man who should lay his
fingers on me something to remember me by while he had breath in his
body.

The men, not quite understanding what was happening, but seeing that a
"row" was taking place, came to the forecastle and advanced by degrees
along the main-deck. Among them I noticed the cook, muttering to one
or the other who stood near.

Mr. Duckling, awakened by the vi