hat a large sailing vessel
had collided with the steamer. He saw great sails and a strange
deck, where men in oilskin coats were rushing about in mad terror.
The wind freshened, and the sails became as taut as drums. The
masts bulged, while the yards snapped with a succession of reports
that sounded like pistol shots. A great three-master, which in the
dense fog had sailed straight into _L'Univers_, had somehow got her
bowsprit wedged into the side of the liner, and could not free
herself. The passenger steamer listed considerably, but its
propellers went right on working, so that now both ships moved
along together.

"Lord God!" exclaimed the cabin boy as he rushed out on deck, "that
poor boat has run into us, and now it will surely sink!"

It never occurred to him that the steamer could be imperilled, big
and fine as she was. The officers came hurrying up; but when they
saw it was only a sailing vessel that had collided with their ship,
they felt quite safe, and with the utmost confidence took the
necessary steps for getting the boats clear of each other.

The little cabin boy stood on the deck barelegged, his shirt
fluttering in the wind, and beckoned to the unhappy men on the
sailing vessel to come over to the steamer and save themselves. At
first no one seemed to take any notice of him, but presently a big
man with a red beard began motioning to him.

"Come over here, boy!" the man shouted, running to the side of the
vessel. "The steamer is sinking!"

The little boy had not the faintest notion of going over to the
sailing vessel. He shouted as loud as he could that the people on
the doomed boat should come over to _L'Univers_, and save their
lives.

While the other men on the three-master were working with poles and
boat hooks to free their vessel from the steamer, the man with the
red beard could think of nothing but the little cabin boy, for whom
he had evidently conceived an extraordinary pity. He put his hands
to his mouth, trumpet-like, and called: "Come over here, come over
here!"

The little lad looked forlorn and cold, standing on the deck in his
thin shirt. He stamped his foot and shook his fist at the men on
the other boat, because they would not mind him and board the
steamer. A huge greyhound like _L'Univers_, with six hundred
passengers and a crew of two hundred men, couldn't possibly go
down, he reasoned. And, of course, he could see that both the
captain and the sailors were just as calm a