bottom--had been a water-logged boat before the fisherman took
possession of it and turned it into a quaint-looking cottage by running
up some wooden walls along the sides, and roofing it in with planks and
tarpaulin. Thus converted into a dwelling-house, the boat had been
secured, by four chains fixed to posts in the ground, on the top of a
mud-bank that formed the boundary of the mouth of the river.

The ocean itself was less than a quarter of a mile from where the old
boat was moored, and so the poor woman might well be excused for growing
more alarmed as the minutes went on and the gale increased, until the
boat fairly rocked, and the children in the adjoining cabin began crying
and screaming in their fright.

"Coomber! Coomber!" she said at last, shaking her husband, and starting
up in bed; for a sound more dreadful than the children's screams had
made itself heard above the din of the wind and waves.

"There's a ship, Coomber, close in shore; I can hear the guns!" screamed
his wife, giving him another vigorous shake.

"Ship! guns!" exclaimed the old fisherman, starting up in bed. The next
minute he was on his feet, and working himself into his clothes. "She
must be on the sand-bar if you heard the guns," he said.

A sudden lurch of the boat almost pitched the old man forward, and the
children's screams redoubled, while Mrs. Coomber hastily scrambled out
of bed and lighted the lantern that hung against the wall.

"What are yer going to do?" asked her husband, in some surprise; "women
ain't no good in such work as this."

"What are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Coomber, almost crying herself;
"the boat will soon be adrift with this wind and tide, and we shall all
be drowned like rats in a hole."

"Nay, nay, old woman, the boat was made taut enough before I brought you
here, and you think she wouldn't have broke away before this if she was
going to do it? Don't be a stupid lubber," he added.

"But the children, Coomber, the children. I ain't afraid for myself,"
said the mother, with a sob.

"Well, well, the old boat'll hold the boys for many a day yet," said the
fisherman; "you go in and stop their noise, while I get help for the
poor souls that are surely perishing out there."

"But what can you do for them?" asked his wife; "there ain't a boat
besides ours at Bermuda Point, nor a man to help you manage it besides
Bob."

"No, no; Bob and I couldn't manage the boat in such a sea as this; but
he shall go