voice, high and shrill
above the rest:--

"Man overboard!"

There wasn't anything to be done, with the ship hove-to and the
wheel lashed. If there was a man overboard, he must be in the
water right alongside. I couldn't imagine how it could have
happened, but I ran forward instinctively. I came upon the cook
first, half-dressed in his shirt and trousers, just as he had
tumbled out of his bunk. He was jumping into the main rigging,
evidently hoping to see the man, as if any one could have seen
anything on such a night, except the foam-streaks on the black
water, and now and then the curl of a breaking sea as it went
away to leeward. Several of the men were peering over the rail
into the dark. I caught the cook by the foot, and asked who was
gone.

"It's Jim Benton," he shouted down to me. "He's not aboard this
ship!"

There was no doubt about that. Jim Benton was gone; and I knew in
a flash that he had been taken off by that sea when we were
setting the storm trysail. It was nearly half an hour since then;
she had run like wild for a few minutes until we got her hove-to,
and no swimmer that ever swam could have lived as long as that in
such a sea. The men knew it as well as I, but still they stared
into the foam as if they had any chance of seeing the lost man. I
let the cook get into the rigging and joined the men, and asked
if they had made a thorough search on board, though I knew they
had and that it could not take long, for he wasn't on deck, and
there was only the forecastle below.

"That sea took him over, sir, as sure as you're born," said one
of the men close beside me.

We had no boat that could have lived in that sea, of course, and
we all knew it. I offered to put one over, and let her drift
astern two or three cable's-lengths by a line, if the men thought
they could haul me aboard again; but none of them would listen to
that, and I should probably have been drowned if I had tried it,
even with a life-belt; for it was a breaking sea. Besides, they
all knew as well as I did that the man could not be right in our
wake. I don't know why I spoke again. "Jack Benton, are you
there? Will you go if I will?"

"No, sir," answered a voice; and that was all.

By that time the old man was on deck, and I felt his hand on my
shoulder rather roughly, as if he meant to shake me.

"I'd reckoned you had more sense, Mr. Torkeldsen," he said. "God
knows I would risk my ship to look for him, if it were any use;
bu