culation. "This is what
one might call pure luck. Now if I only had a pair of oars."

Not having any, he tried his sail, but found the attempt useless, and
he was compelled to sit there thrilling with impatience to be aboard
once more. Finally, as he was about to rise and shout, he noticed
something white being waved from one of the stern windows.

While he was puzzling his brain over the meaning of this, a line of
black heads appeared above the bulwarks, and sundry black, naked forms
ran up the rigging. At the same time a chorus of barbaric yells rang
out, that chilled the boy's blood, even at that distance.

"I wonder if the blacks have got possession of the ship at last," and
with the thought his heart sank as he realized the certain death to all
in case such a thing had taken place. "If this be so, they have
undoubtedly killed every white aboard."

Ralph's situation now became doubly trying. To venture to board the
schooner might prove his destruction. To remain in the yawl was to
court a lingering and terrible death.

Already the pangs of hunger were almost unendurable. He drank from the
keg, then measured the contents with a splinter. It was half empty.
Twenty-four more hours of this and then----

"Come what will," he resolved, "I shall try to board the vessel. One
may as well die one way as another."

After some reflection he took apart his mast and used the six foot
strips as oars, finding that he made a little progress, though the task
was fatiguing and the movement exasperatingly slow.

Meanwhile the noise on the Wanderer grew hideous. The idle, untrimmed
manner in which the sails swung, was a fearful indication that the
untrained negroes were masters. When within two hundred yards he took
a careful survey. The whole deck and the lower rigging were alive with
blacks shouting, gesticulating, acting more like lunatics than sane
beings.

Something at the stern window again attracted his notice. It was a
handkerchief being waved. He answered the signal by waving his hat.
Then to Ralph's surprise and delight a white face was cautiously
protruded.

"I'll help that man off or die for it," was his next thought as he bent
once more to the task of rowing.

Had not the ocean been calm he would have made no headway. As it was,
when he drew up some thirty yards from the schooner's stern, he was for
the moment completely exhausted.

Turning round, he recognized with joy the pale blood-stained