dozen leaks in her bottom; but the reality,
though it may also be exciting, is very far from pleasant. People under
such circumstances are inclined to labour away rather in a hurry, and
not to stand on much ceremony as to what they do. Night was coming on
rapidly. They laboured and laboured away. It was difficult enough to
do it with daylight: it was a question whether they could make any
progress at all in the dark.

"There, sir!" exclaimed Needham, giving a hearty blow with his hammer,
and relieving his pent-up feelings by a loud outletting of his breath
between a groan and a sigh; "I hope that will do." Without stopping a
moment, he and Wasser, with White, the other seaman, seized the break,
and began labouring away with all their might. To the great joy of all
hands a clear full stream came gushing upon deck, and ran out through
the scuppers. The blacks, and all not immediately engaged in mending
the pump, had been baling away all the time with buckets. They pumped
and pumped away, and after half an hour's toil they found on sounding
that they had much lessened the water in the hold.

"Huzza!" shouted Needham; "we'll do now, never fear, lads!" Nearly
three hours, however, passed before the vessel was completely cleared of
water. It was Adair's watch.

"I shall sleep more soundly than I have done for many a day," said
Murray, as he prepared to turn into his horrible little berth. "We have
been so mercifully preserved that I trust the same Almighty hand will
protect us to the end of our voyage. Paddy, my dear fellow, do you ever
pray? I never see you on your knees."

"Pray!" answered Adair, with some hesitation, "of course I do; that is
to say, sometimes--when I recollect it. I dare say I ought more than I
do."

Murray took his shipmate's arm as they stood together near the taffrail
of their little craft, looking out over that heaving ocean whose smooth,
glass-like undulations reflected ever and anon the bright stars which
glittered in the dark sky above their heads. "Tell me who but One whose
hand is powerful to save could have preserved us from the numberless
dangers into which our duty, but how often our thoughtlessness, has led
us. Were it not by His mercy, we should even now be sinking beneath
those glassy but treacherous swells on which our vessel floats securely;
then should we not, my dear Adair, pray to Him, not only now and then,
when we may think of it, but at morning and evening, when