"Let me have the canoe, otherwise I must swim to the ship."

"I declare," continued Becker, "that Willis exaggerates the
requirements of his duty. There are stronger forces to which the human
will must yield. It is one thing to desert one's post in the hour of
danger, and another to have come on shore at the express desire of a
superior officer, when the weather was fine, and nothing presaged a
storm."

"If there is danger," continued the obstinate sailor, whom the united
strength of the four men could scarcely restrain, "I ought to share
it; that is my duty and I must."

"But," said Wolston, "all the boatswains and pilots in the world can
do nothing against hurricanes and waterspouts; their duty consists in
steering the ship clear of reefs and quicksands, and not in fighting
with the elements."

"There is one thing you forget, Mr. Wolston."

"And what is that, Willis?"

"It is to be side by side with your comrades in the hour of calamity,
to aid them if you can, and to perish with them if such be the will of
Fate. At this moment, poor Littlestone may be on the point of taking
up his winter quarters in the body of a shark. But there, if the
sloop is lost while I am here on shore, I will not survive her; all
that you can say or do will not prevent me doing myself justice."

At this moment Jack, who had disappeared during this discussion,
unobserved, came in saturated to the skin with water, and in a state
difficult to describe. Like the boots of Panurge, his feet were
floating in the water that flowed from the rim of his cap.

"What is this?" exclaimed his mother. "You wilful boy, may I ask
where, in all the world, you have been?"

"I have just come from the bay. O father and mother! O Mr. and Mrs.
Wolston! O Master Willis! if you had only seen! The sea is furious;
sometimes the waves rise to the skies and mingle with the clouds, so
that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends.
It is frightful, but it is magnificent!"

"And the sloop?" demanded Willis.

"She is not to be seen; she is no longer at anchor in the bay."

"Gone to the open sea, to avoid being driven ashore," said Wolston.
"Captain Littlestone is not the man to remain in a perilous position
whilst there remained a means of escape; besides, nothing that
science, united with courage and presence of mind, could do, would
have been neglected by him to save his ship."

"In addition to which," observed Becker, "if he had foun