ight; the wind thrummed on the cordage; the gaff
whistled with tremulous sounds, as though some frightened soul were
shivering at the mast-head; and when the inky waves rolled out of the
gloom, they showed no definite shape--only a sliding dark cloud fringed
with white flame. There is always a steady roar from the sails, and one
hears it better at night; Jack had often heard the roar rise to a howl,
but no noise that ever he knew had such effect on him as the rushing
moan from the sails that night.

There are only two men in a watch on board a smack, and it often happens
that one will go below to fetch some of the tea which the seamen drink
so insatiably. Jack's mate was below, but the helmsman had no fear, as
all was clear. He mused on, always peering sharply round for a few
minutes when suddenly, over the haze which was rising, he saw a white
light, and then the loom of a green. "All right; well clear," he
muttered. "Glad the fog's no higher. Why doesn't he use his whistle?"
Then, with the suddenness of lightning, he found the red light opened on
him, and, with a chill at his heart, he discovered that he could not get
his own vessel out of the road. Once he sang out, and then came the
looming of a black mountain over him. Until the monster's stem took him
on the quarter and the smack hurled over--hustled into the sea by the
impetus of the steamer--Jack never left go of his wheel; he had a few
seconds, and, with his nimble spring, he rushed to the mizen rigging,
nicked the strings of one lifebuoy; lifted another from forward of the
companion, and then made his rush for the forehatch.

"All out. No time for the boats!"

One man sprang up panting and Jack said, "Here you are, Harry. Shove
that on, and jump. Jump to windward." The smack reared up; there was a
long crashing rush of the swift water; then Jack saw the liquid darkness
over him, and he was just beginning to hear that awful buzzing in the
ears when, with a roar, he felt the upper air swoop round him.

He could just see a coil of foam on the blackness to mark where the
smack had gone down, and, as he cleared his eyes, he saw the cloudy
shape of the steamer far away. "Harry, boy!" he sang out, but Harry must
have been hit by a spar, and Jack Brown was left alone on that bleak,
black waste of wandering water.

"A lingering death," he murmured, as he felt the spray cut round his
head; but he struggled resolutely to keep his face front the set of the
sea, and t