ard side. Go aft to it, I will row round the ship and meet you
there."

She nodded her head, and Morris started on his journey. It proved
perilous. To begin with, there were rocks all about. Also, here the tide
or the current, or both, ran with the speed of a mill-race, so that
in places the sea bubbled and swirled like a boiling kettle. However
skilled and strong he might be, it was hard for one man to deal with
such difficulties and escape disaster. Still following the port side
of the ship, since owing to the presence of certain rocks he dared not
attempt the direct starboard passage, he came at last to her stern. Then
he saw how imminent was the danger, for the poop of the vessel,
which seemed to be of about a thousand tons burden, was awash and
water-logged, but rolling and lifting beneath the pressure of the tide
as it drew on to flood.

To Morris, who had lived all his life by the sea, and understood such
matters, it was plain that presently she would float, or be torn off
the point of the rock on which she hung, broken-backed, and sink in the
hundred-fathom-deep water which lay beyond the reef. There was no time
to spare, and he laboured at his oars fiercely, till at length, partly
by skill and partly by good fortune, he reached the companion ladder and
fastened to it with a boat-hook.

Now no woman was to be seen; she had vanished. Morris called and called,
but could get no answer, while the great dead carcass of the ship rolled
and laboured above, its towering mass of iron threatening to fall and
crush him and his tiny craft to nothingness. He shouted and shouted
again; then in despair lashed his boat to the companion, and ran up the
ladder.

Where could she have gone? He hurried forward along the heaving, jerking
deck to the main hatchway. Here he hesitated for a moment; then, knowing
that, if anywhere, she must be below, set his teeth and descended. The
saloon was a foot deep in water, which washed from side to side with a
heavy, sickening splash, and there, carrying a bag in one hand, holding
up her garments with the other, and wading towards him from the dry
upper part of the cabin, at last he found the lady whom he sought.

"Be quick!" he shouted; "for God's sake, be quick! The ship is coming
off the rock."

She splashed towards him; now he had her by the hand; now they were
on the deck, and now he was dragging her after him down the companion
ladder. They reached the boat, and just as the ship gav