off those lee braces a bit, and haul in these to the
weather-side!" said the captain, as soon as he had got back to his
proper place on the poop again. "I think the wind is coming round more
aft, and we can lay her on her course. Keep her steady. So!"--he
added, to the man at the wheel. "But easy her off now and then, if she
labours."

And then he went below to the cabin, down to which the rescued sailor
had been carried, and where the mate, Mr Rawlings, and the negro
steward, were trying to bring him back to life by rolling him in
blankets before the stove.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWO.

RESCUED.

"Waal, how's the man getting on now?" asked the skipper as he entered
the cuddy.

"Man?" said Mr Rawlings, looking up on the captain's entrance. "It
isn't a man at all. Only a lad of sixteen summers at best."

"Poor chap!" said the other sympathisingly. "Man or boy, I guess he's
had a pretty rough time of it out thaar!"

"Just so," answered the passenger. "And it's a wonder he's still
alive."

"Is he? I was afraid he was gone!" said the captain.

"No, sah. Um berry much alibe, sah, yes sah," said the steward, who,
having seen many half-drowned persons before, had known how to treat the
present patient properly. "See, sah, him chest rise and fall now, sah.
When jus' lilly time back um couldn't hear him heart beat!"

It was as the man said, and a tinge of colour appeared also to steal
into the thin, blanched face of the lad, or boy, who seemed even younger
than the mate had said, and who looked very delicate and ill--more so,
indeed, than his long exposure to the violence of the waves and the
terrible peril in which he had been, quite warranted.

"He'll come round now, I think," said the skipper, expressing more his
hopes than his actual belief; for the boy had not yet opened his eyes,
and his breath only came in convulsive sighs, that shook his extended
frame "fore and aft," as a seaman would say.

"Yes, sir, he'll do. But it was a narrow squeak for such a slim
youngster."

"So it must have been, Seth," replied the skipper to the mate, who had
last spoken. "But his time hadn't come yet, as it had for many a brave
fellow bigger and stronger than him! Look, Seth!--he's opening his eyes
now! I'm blest if they aren't like a girl's!"

The boy, whose lids had been previously closed, the long lashes resting
on his cheek, had raised them; and the large blue orbs, fixed in a sort
of wondering stare on t