er bow pointed first one way and then another, as though she
were no longer being steered. We ran aft to learn the cause, and found
this.

That crew of dastards, every man of them and the captain with them, had
drawn up the boat in which Kari and I came aboard, that was still tied
to the ship's stern, and slid down the rope into her, purposing to
win ashore before it was too late. Kari smiled as though he were not
astonished, but in my rage I shouted at them, calling them curs and
traitors. I think that the captain heard my words for I saw him turn
his head and look away as though in shame, but not the others. They were
engaged in hunting for the oars, only to find them gone, for it would
seem that they had been washed or had fallen overboard.

Then they tried to set some kind of sail by aid of a boathook, but while
they were doing this, the boat, which had drifted side on to the great
waves raised by the gale upon the face of the broad river, overturned. I
saw some of the men clinging to the boat and one or two scrambling on to
her keel, but what chanced to them and the others I do not know, who had
rushed to the steering gear to set the ship upon her course again,
lest her fate should be that of the boat, or we should go ashore and be
captured by those who galloped on the bank, or be drowned. This was the
last I ever saw or heard of the crew of the _Blanche_.

The ship's bow came round and, driven by the ever-increasing gale, she
rushed on her course towards the sea, bearing us with her, two weak and
lonely men.

"Kari," I said, "what shall we do? Try to run ashore, or sail on?"

He thought awhile then answered, pointing to those who galloped, now but
tiny figures on the distant bank:

"Master, yonder is death, sure death; and yonder," here he pointed to
the sea, "is death--perhaps. Master, you have a God, and I, Kari, have
another God, mayhap same God with different name. I say--Trust our Gods
and sail on, for Gods better than men. If we die in water, what matter?
Water softer than rope, but I think not die."

I nodded, for the reasoning seemed good. Rather would I be drowned than
fall into the hands of those who were galloping on the shore, to be
dragged back to London and a felon's doom.

So I pressed upon the tiller to bring the _Blanche_ more into
mid-channel, and headed for the sea. Wider and wider grew the estuary
and farther and farther away the shores as the _Blanche_ scudded on
beneath her small sai