to enable him to comprehend more
than a word, here and there.

So matters might have remained, for months, had not an event
occurred which disclosed the true nationality of the lads. One day
the ordinarily placid blue sky was over-clouded. The wind rose
rapidly and, in a few hours, a tremendous storm was blowing on the
coast. Most of the vessels in the harbor succeeded in running into
shelter. But, later in the day, a cry arose that a ship had just
rounded the point of the bay, and that she would not be able to
make the port. The whole population speedily gathered upon the
mole, and the vessel, a small one employed in the coasting trade,
was seen struggling with the waves, which were rapidly bearing her
towards a reef, lying a quarter of a mile from the shore.

The sea was, at this time, running with tremendous force. The wind
was howling in a fierce gale, and when the vessel struck upon the
rocks, and her masts at once went by the board, all hope of safety
for the crew appeared at an end.

"Cannot a boat be launched," said Ned to the soldiers standing
round, "to effect the rescue of these poor fellows in that wreck?"

"Impossible!" they all said. "No boat could live in that sea."

After chatting for a time, Tom and Ned drew a little apart from the
rest of the crowd, and watched the ill-fated vessel.

"It is a rough sea, certainly," Ned said; "but it is all nonsense
to say that a boat could not live. Come along, Tom. Let us push
that shallop down. There is a sheltered spot behind that rock where
we may launch her, and methinks that our arms can row her out to
yonder ship."

Throwing off their doublets, the young men put their shoulders to
the boat, and soon forced it into the water. Then, taking their
seats and putting out the oars, they rowed round the corner of the
sheltering rock, and breasted the sea which was rolling in. A cry
of astonishment broke from the crowd on the mole as the boat made
its appearance, and the astonishment was heightened when it was
declared, by the soldiers, that the two men on board were the wild
men of the wood, as they were familiarly called among themselves.

It was a long struggle before the boys reached the wreck, and it
needed all their strength and seamanship to avoid being swamped by
the tremendous seas. At last, however, they neared it and, catching
a line thrown to them by the sailors, brought the boat up under the
lee of the ship; and as the captain, the four men who com