north-east; two or three of the
men who were clinging to the taffrail with me thought that it was a ship
on fire, but after watching it for some minutes we became convinced that
it was a burning mountain. We argued that if there was a mountain there
was land; and I had heard that such lands were generally the most
fertile, and so we hoped that if we could reach it we should find
support.

"There was a light burning in the cabin, and the captain's supper was on
the table; I managed to reach the companion-hatch, and slipped down
below. I quickly snatched up whatever provisions I could find--a
compass, a quadrant, and navigation book, and returned with them on
deck. A small boat hung astern; two of the men, David King and another,
agreed to lower her, for the water astern appeared occasionally to be
comparatively smooth, and we fancied that she might swim where a larger
boat might be swamped; at all events, we believed that the ship was
about to break up, and that this would be the only chance of saving our
lives. There was no time to be lost; we put everything necessary we
could find into the boat, and, jumping in, lowered her down. As she
touched the water, the other man, crying out that we should be swamped,
swarmed up the falls, and in an instant King and I were carried far away
from the ship. I thought his words would come true, but we were driven
on right through the surf, and once more floated in smooth water.

"What would happen next we could not tell, so we lay on our oars,
waiting till daylight. It was very long of coming; we thought that it
never would come--at least that we should never see it. When it broke,
we could no longer see the burning mountain, nor any land in that
direction; nor could we have reached it had we seen it, for the wind was
blowing strong from the quarter in which the light had appeared. Still
more anxiously we looked for the ship; not a portion of her remained
entire, but the numerous pieces of wreck which floated about near us,
told us plainly what had become of her and our shipmates. We looked
about, hoping that some of them might be floating on bits of the wreck,
but no living being was to be seen. In the distance we observed the
bodies of two poor fellows; we pulled up to them, knowing from the first
that they were dead; they were those of two men who had been holding on
to the ship when we left her.

"It would not do to remain where we were, and as we could not sail in