aring awe-struck
into each other's faces.

Then--"Christ have mercy on his soul!" somebody said.

And, "Amen!" came the answer in a deep whisper.

Then Mr. Wheeler gave some order in a voice that shook, and we rowed
from the fatal spot.

Sylvia sat with one hand covering her face. Her other arm crept round my
waist. I was so dazed I could hardly think--too bewildered to grasp what
had happened.

"Poor child!" said Dr. Atherton.

"Sara, Dr. Atherton is speaking to you ... Sara!"

I raised my head.

"Poor child!" I heard again. "Sit up and drink this," said the doctor's
voice, and I felt him chafing my hand.

"Miss Sara, won't you try to be brave? Look at Miss Sylvia," he said.

"She be a rare plucked 'un, she be. Cheer up, you poor little 'un!"

"While there is life, there's 'ope, little miss. Thank the Lord, we're
not all on us drowned."

I burst into tears, I was ashamed that I did; but it was oh! such a
relief to cry.

When I came to myself they were talking together. I heard in a stupefied
way.

"No immediate peril, thank God."

"Not in calm weather like this."

"Two chances for life--she must either make land, or be picked up by
some vessel at sea."

"... Beautifully still it is, Miss Sylvia. Might have been shipwrecked
in a storm, you know."

It came to my confused senses that they were very good--these men; for
they, too, were in peril of their lives; yet the chief anxiety of one
and all was to calm mine and Sylvia's fears.

Another blanket was passed up for us to sit upon. And then they started
an earnest consultation among themselves.

There were four sailors in our boat. Gilliland--the big, burly fellow
who had lighted his pipe--and Evans, and Hookway, and Davis. Dr.
Atherton and the first mate made six; and Sylvia and I made eight.

The long-boat was a good deal bigger than the cutter; and she held
eighteen to twenty men.

We gathered from their talk that the _May Queen_, after Captain Maitland
had altered her course, had run two hundred and fifty miles out of what
they termed "the track of trade"; and that unless we got back to the old
track again, there was small chance of our being picked up by another
vessel.

On the other hand, to make for the nearest land, we would have to
traverse the ocean for some six hundred miles, and Mr. Wheeler, it
seemed, was hesitating as to which course to take.

The men in the long-boat bawled to the men in the cutter, and the men in
the cutte