floating deck. The news that our
loss was not as heavy by twenty-six as I had supposed it to be was
intensely gratifying, and my spirits rose under its influence to a pitch
of almost extravagant hilarity. Twenty-eight poor fellows still
remained unaccounted for, and they had undoubtedly gone down with the
schooner; but the loss was, after all comparatively trifling, taking
into consideration the suddenness and completeness of the disaster, and
I was inexpressibly thankful that matters had turned out to be no worse.

The boat was soon alongside again for a second moiety of my companions
in misfortune, and a third trip sufficed to clear the raft of its living
occupants, I, of course, as in duty bound, being the last to leave the
clumsy structure which had served us in such good stead.

As I sat beside the young lieutenant in the stern-sheets of the boat
during our journey to the ship--which occupied about a quarter of an
hour, she having drifted considerably to leeward during the process of
transhipment--he asked a few questions which elicited from me the
leading particulars of our mishap; and having learned these he informed
me that his ship, the _Santa Catalina_, had sailed four days previously
from Cartagena for Cadiz, that she, like ourselves, had been caught in
the hurricane, from which, however, she had escaped with only the damage
to her spars already referred to. As we approached the ship's side near
enough to discern the crowd of curious faces peering at us over the
lofty bulwarks, my new friend remarked with a peculiar smile:

"You will find among our passengers two former acquaintances of your
own, unless I am greatly mistaken."

We were alongside before I had time to ask him the names of these two
former acquaintances, and in another moment, accepting the precedence
which the courteous young Spaniard, with a graceful wave of the hand
accorded me, I found myself on the side ladder of the _Santa Catalina_.

As I stepped in through the entering port a small, withered-up, sun-
dried, yellow-complexioned man in full captain's uniform met me, and,
introducing himself somewhat pompously as Don Felix Calderon, the
captain of the _Santa Catalina_, bade me, and through me my companions,
welcome on board his ship, congratulating us upon our speedy rescue, and
expressing the gratification he felt at being the means of saving so
many gallant _enemies_ from a possible watery grave. I made my
acknowledgments as grac