m his bed. But while the ocean within was still running out of
her scuppers, the ocean without assaulted her anew. Successive billows
rolled under her, careening her dead weight this way and that, and keeping
her constantly wallowing. No rigging could bear such jerking long, and
presently the dreaded catastrophe came.

The larboard stays of the foremast snapped first; then the shrouds on the
same side doubled in a great bight and parted; next the mast, with a loud,
shrieking crash, splintered and went by the board. It fell slowly and with
an air of dignified, solemn resignation, like Caesar under the daggers of
the conspirators. The cross stays flew apart like cobwebs, but the lee
shrouds unfortunately held good; and scarcely was the stick overboard
before there was an ominous thumping at the sides, the drum-beat of death.
It was like guns turned on their own columns; like Pyrrhus's elephants
breaking the phalanx of Pyrrhus.

"Axes!" roared the captain at the first crack. "Axes!" yelled the mate as
the spar reeled into the water. "Lay forward and clear the wreck," were
the next orders; "cut away with your knives."

Two axes were got up from below; the sailors worked like beavers,
waist-deep in water; one, who had lost his knife, tore at the ropes with
his teeth. After some minutes of reeling, splashing, chopping, and
cutting, the fallen mast, the friend who had become an enemy, the angel
who had become a demon, was sent drifting through the creamy foam to
leeward. Meantime the mate had sounded the pumps, and brought out of them
a clear stream of water, the fresh invasion of ocean.

Directly on this cruel discovery, and as if to heighten its horror to the
utmost, the captain, clinging high up the mainmast shrouds, shouted,
"Landa-lee! Get ready the boats."

Without a word Thurstane hurried down into the cabin to save Clara from
this twofold threatening of death.

CHAPTER XL.

When Thurstane got into the cabin, he found it pretty nearly clear of
water, the steward having opened doors and trap-doors and drawn off the
deluge into the hold.

The first object that he saw, or could see, was Clara, curled up in a
chair which was lashed to the mast, and secured in it by a lanyard. As he
paused at the foot of the stairway to steady himself against a sickening
lurch, she uttered a cry of joy and astonishment, and held out her hand.
The cry was not speech; her gladness was far beyond words; it was simply
the first