oars which had floated free of the broken boats
remaining on the cruiser, the occupants managed to propel the raft,
despite the heavy sea still running, to a large grating, to which half a
dozen men were clinging, submerged to their chins.

By this time, however, the raft was as heavily weighted as it could
safely be--the water, indeed, was sweeping over it at times in such
volume as to bury the men almost to their waists; and it was fortunate
for its occupants that the other two boats now returned and, getting
alongside, proceeded to relieve it of some of its living burden,
otherwise a great number would inevitably have soon been swept away to
death.

There were still a few men either swimming or clinging to pieces of
wreckage, and when these had been taken on board the boats, the mournful
harvest was completed. Save for spars, gratings, and fragments of
wreckage, the sea was clear of every trace of the once-proud cruiser.
All the survivors of the catastrophe were either ashore, on the raft, or
divided between the two boats; and after another careful scrutiny in
every direction, Frobisher recognised that there were no more to be
saved, and ordered the boats to pass lines aboard the raft and tow it to
the shore.

The landing was effected in safety, except for the loss of one man, who
was snapped up by a shark as he sprang out of one of the boats to help
to run her up the beach. The great fish swooped up with a rush, turned
on its side in the shallow water, and dragged the man away before a hand
could be lifted to rescue him. His despairing shriek rang in the ears
of everybody for many a day afterwards; yet his fate was a lucky one
compared to that in store for some of those who stood shivering and wet
upon that sandy beach in the chill air of early morning.

Once safely ashore, Frobisher proceeded to count the survivors; and out
of the crew of three hundred and thirty men who were on board the _Chih'
Yuen_ when she left Wei-hai-wei, he found only a hundred and forty
remaining. Of the others, some had been washed overboard during the
typhoon, more had been swept away when the ship first struck, and the
rest had gone down when she sank, either between her decks or sucked
down and drowned in the vortex caused by the sinking hull.

This was no time for repining, however; they were not yet by any means
out of the wood, and there was a good deal of work to be done at once.
First of all, the provisions and water-cask