eplied the cabin boy; and then he sat up
and began to cry.

Young Ratcliff ran off to tell his father what he had found; and the
boy was brought to the cottage, put to bed, and supplied with food
and drink. The signal for a wreck was hoisted at the flagstaff, but
when the signallman went to look for a wreck he could not find one.
He searched along the shore and found the dead body of the captain,
and a piece of splintered spar seven or eight feet long, on which the
cabin boy had come ashore. The 'Ecliptic', with her cargo and crew,
had completely disappeared, while the signalman, near at hand, slept
peacefully, undisturbed by her crashing timbers, or the shouts of the
drowning seamen. Ratcliff was not a seer, and had no mystical lore.
He was a runaway sailor, who had, in the forties, travelled daily
over the Egerton run, unconscious of the tons of gold beneath his
feet.

There was a fair wind and a smooth sea when the 'Clonmel' went ashore
at three o'clock in the morning of the second day of January, 1841.
Eighteen hours before she had taken a fresh departure from Ram's Head
to Wilson's Promontory. The anchors were let go, she swung to wind,
and at the fall of the tide she bedded herself securely in the sand,
her hull, machinery, and cargo uninjured. The seventy-five
passengers and crew were safely landed; sails, lumber, and provisions
were taken ashore in the whaleboats and quarter-boats; tents were
erected; the food supplies were stowed away under a capsized boat,
and a guard set over them by Captain Tollervey.

Next morning seven volunteers launched one of the whaleboats, boarded
the steamer, took in provisions, made a lug out of a piece of canvas,
hoisted the Union Jack to the mainmast upside down, and pulled safely
away from the 'Clonmel' against a head wind. They hoisted the lug
and ran for one of the Seal Islands, where they found a snug little
cove, ate a hearty meal, and rested for three hours. They then
pulled for the mainland, and reached Sealer's Cove about midnight,
where they landed, cooked supper, and passed the rest of the night in
the boat for fear of the blacks.

Next morning three men went ashore for water and filled the breaker,
when they saw three blacks coming down towards them; so they hurried
on board, and the anchor was hauled up.

As the wind was coming from the east, they had to pull for four hours
before they weathered the southern point of the cove; they then
hoisted sail and