which had gone about on
the port tack, beating to windward and coming up to meet us, the crew of
the boat bending their backs and pulling their hardest till the stout
ash blades nearly doubled in two with the strain, while the big, rolling
sea raced after us, trying to catch us up; when, all of a sudden, the
man holding the stroke oar on the after thwart uttered an exclamation
which made the lieutenant look behind.

"By Jove!" he cried, "we've had a narrow shave."

The doctor and I both turned round at this.

We were only just in time to see the ill-fated vessel which we had so
recently left, rear herself end on and sink beneath the waves, bow
foremost!

CHAPTER TWENTY.

"A BIT OF A BLOW!"

The doctor did not like the flippant way in which the lieutenant alluded
to our providential escape.

"You ought to thank God, Mr Jellaby, with all your heart that you have
not gone down in her," he said in a grave and impressive tone, looking
him full in the face. "It is far too serious a matter for you to speak
of so lightly. Just think, man, we've only been saved by a
hair's-breadth from death!"

The lieutenant, however, was incorrigible.

"A miss is as good as a mile, doctor," he rejoined with a laugh, which
made all the boat's crew grin in sympathy, his devil-may-care philosophy
appealing more strongly to their sailor nature than the doctor's moral
reflections. "Stand by, bows!"

On this, the bowmen unshipped their oars with great care, so as not to
cause any rocking; and, laying them in dexterously, faced round at the
same time, one holding a boathook ready and the other the grapnel with a
coil of rope attached, prepared to fling it when we were near enough to
the ship.

Our gallant vessel was plunging along athwart our course as if she meant
to give us the go-by, the sea foaming up at her bows in a big wave that
curled up in front of her forefoot and broke over her figurehead as she
dipped, sending the surf high in the air in a sheet of foam over her
forecastle.

Those on board, though, had no intention of abandoning us, as we could
quickly see, had we needed any assurance on the point.

Just as she was within half a cable's length of our starboard beam, we
could hear the sound of the shrill boatswain's pipe above the splash of
the sea; when she came up to the wind so close to the cutter that it
looked as if she was going to run us down instanter.

But, we knew better than that.

"Way enough!" shout