oat. There was a yell from both smacks; then the boat
appeared, swamped, with the men up to their necks; then the boat went,
sucking the men down for a time, and then Lewis Ferrier and his two
comrades were left spinning in the desperate whirls of the black eddies.

"Run to them!" yelled Tom. "Never mind if you carry everything away.
Only keep clear of the other smack." Ferrier found the water warm, and
he let himself swing passively. His thoughts were in a hurly-burly. Was
this the end of all--youth, love, brave days of manhood? Nay, he would
struggle. Had they not prayed before they set out? All must come
right--it must. And yet that spray was choking. He could not see his
companions. A yell. "Lewis, my son, I'll come over." But Tom was held
back; the smack was brought up all shaking. First the skipper caught a
rope. Good, noble old man! He was half senseless when they hauled him on
board. Then Lewis heard, as in a torpid reverie, a great voice, "Lay
hold, Lewis, and I _will_ come if you're bothered." What was he doing?
Mechanically he ran the rope under the sleeve of his life-jacket; a
mighty jerk seemed likely to pull him in halves as the smack sheered;
then a heavy, dragging pain came--he was being torn, torn, _torn_.

He woke in the cabin before the fire, and found Tom Lennard blubbering
hard over him. "Warm it seems, Thomas? Reckon I almost lost my number
that time."

"My good Lewis! No more. I had to strip you, and I've done everything.
The skipper's dead beat, and if Bob couldn't steer we should be in a
pickle. Let me put you in a hot blanket now, and you'll have some grog."
Then, with his own queer humour, Lewis Ferrier said, "Tom, all this is
only a lesson. If we'd had a proper boat, a proper lift for sick men,
and a proper vessel to lift them into, I should have been all right. We
won't come back to have these baths quite so often. We'll have a _ship_
when we come again, and not merely a thing to sail. And now give me just
a thimble-full of brandy, and then replace the bottle amongst the other
poisonous physic! I'm getting as lively as a grasshopper. A nautical--a
nautical taste, Thomas!"

And then Ferrier went off to sleep just where he was, after very nearly
giving a most convincing proof in his own person of the necessity for a
hospital vessel.

Lennard brooded long, and at last he went to the skipper and asked, "Old
man, shall Bob shove her head for home?"

The skipper nodded.

And now you may se