ver
the water.

Nettleship replied.

Presently the order sounded out from aboard the ship--

"Raise tacks and sheets! clew up mainsail and foresail! Let fly
topgallant-sheets!"

The wind having fallen, the ship soon lost her way, and we pulled up
alongside. A light gleamed through the entrance port, and ready hands,
coming down, quickly assisted us up on deck, while the boat was secured,
for none of us had much strength left to help ourselves.

Nettleship, Tom, and I were at once conducted to the upper deck, where
we found the gallant commander of the _Hector_, Captain Bouchier, to
whom Nettleship at once gave a brief account of what had happened.

"We have reason to be thankful that we escaped the gale, Drury," said
the captain, turning to an officer in a captain's uniform standing near
him. "We should to a certainty have shared the fate of many others."

Captain Bouchier made this remark, I found, in consequence of the
unseaworthy condition of his ship. To enable her to perform the voyage,
before she sailed from Jamaica she had had twenty-two of her guns taken
out of her, and her masts replaced by others of smaller dimensions. Her
crew amounted in all to scarcely three hundred men, many of whom were
invalids, and others French and American prisoners, who had volunteered
to assist in working the ship.

As soon as Nettleship had finished his account, the captain directed
that we should be taken below, and hammocks slung for us.

"I would advise you to turn in, young gentlemen, as soon as you have had
some food," he said, as we were leaving.

He also ordered that our boat's crew should be well looked after. The
surgeon, who was summoned, went to attend to them, and to prevent them
from being overfed, or overdosed with grog, which to a certainty they
would otherwise have been by the seamen of the ship. As I was going
down to the orlop deck, Larry came aft, supported by two men, with his
fiddle-case under his arm.

"Och, Mr Terence," he said, "I'm mighty glad to find ourselves safe
aboard a big ship again, and to see you all right. It is more than I
thought to do since our own went down with all her brave boys, barrin'
ourselves."

The doctor, finding that we did not require much of his assistance,
attended to Larry and the other men, who appeared far more knocked up
than we were, and they were at once sent to their hammocks. We were
ushered into the gun-room by the master's mate, who accompanied us