he fire. Blankets were saturated and
sent down below.

The enemy ceased firing, and endeavoured to haul off from the
neighbourhood of the ill-fated ship. In spite of all the efforts made,
the smoke increased, and flames came rushing up from below. Still, the
crew laboured on; hope had not entirely abandoned them, when suddenly a
loud roar was heard, the decks were torn up, and hundreds of men in one
moment were launched into eternity.

Jack, Tom, and Bill had before this made their escape to the upper deck.
They had been talking together, wondering what was next to happen, when
Bill lost all consciousness; but in a few moments recovering his senses,
found himself in the sea, clinging to a piece of wreck.

He heard voices, but could see no one. He called to Tom and Jack,
fancying that they must be near him, but no answer came.

He must have been thrown, he knew, to some distance from the ship, for
he could see the burning wreck, and the wind appeared to be driving him
farther and farther away from it.

The guns as they became heated went off, and he could hear the shot
splashing in the water around him.

"And Jack and Tom have been lost, poor fellows!" he thought to himself.
"I wish they had been sent here. There's room enough for them on this
piece of wreck.

"We might have held out till to-morrow morning, when some vessel might
have seen us and picked us up."

Curiously enough, he did not think much about himself. Though he was
thankful to have been saved, he guessed truly that the greater number of
his shipmates, and the unfortunate prisoners on board, must have been
lost; yet he regretted Jack and Tom more than all the rest.

The flames from the burning ship cast a bright glare far and wide over
the ocean, tinging the foam-topped seas.

Bill kept gazing towards the ship. He could make out the Frenchman at
some distance off, and fancied that he saw boats pulling across the
tossing waters.

On the other side he could distinguish another vessel, which was also,
he hoped, sending her boats to the relief of the sufferers.

The whole ship, however, appeared so completely enveloped in fire, the
flames bursting out from all the ports and rising through every
hatchway, that he could not suppose it possible any had escaped.

He found it a hard matter to cling on to the piece of wreck, for the
seas were constantly washing over him. Happily it was weighted below,
so that it remained tolerably steady. Had