een.
`Remember _thy_ Creator in the days of thy youth.' Part of the only
hymn I can remember, of my mother's, has come again and again to my ear
to-night--that--

"`God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.'

"I forget the rest, except--

"`Trust Him for His grace:
Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face.'

"Boys! turn in now. I am on watch, and shall keep the fire going. Turn
in, I tell you."

With those last words to finish his talk and order us to bed, his voice
regained its sailor-like strength and roughness, but it melted again as
he added--

"My dear old boys, we shall all pray to-night, eh? and from wiser and
better hearts. _Thank God_!"

The last things I was conscious of that night were the whistling of the
wind and the roaring of the waves, and the snapping and fizzing of the
red embers, thus telling their stories to the storm of the brave ships
of which they once formed parts.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

UGLY VOLUNTEERS--OUR FRESH TUTE TO THE RESCUE!

"Poor old Robinson Crusoe! poor old Robinson Crusoe!
They made him a coat of an old nanny-goat:
I wonder how they could do so!
With a ring a ting tang, and a ring a ting tang,
Poor old Robinson Crusoe." _Mother Goose_.

The storm broke before morning, and a clear fresh September day opened
on us castaways. There was no exertion of ours that could get us home,
for our little cutter was a complete wreck, and we had but one of the
many requisites for constructing a boat or raft--it consisted of the few
planks and timbers of the wreck of the boat which still held together or
had been washed upon the beach, and which, if we were not rescued before
another morning, must be employed in feeding our fire. All the
provisions we had taken with us on our day's voyage were consumed,
except one loaf of bread and two pies, but a sufficient supply of the
fish had been brought from the cutter to feed us for several meals. Of
water--the greatest necessity--there was not a drop on Boatswain's
Half-Acre. During the morning, the want of that became a pain, and
before night any one of us would have given all he possessed for a
single glass of cold water. Captain Mugford told us that now, for the
fourth time in his life, he knew the suffering of thirst.

We must wait to be discovered, to be rescued, and before that we _might
die_ of thirst, for our