lieve the ship, but as he was casting
loose the lee braces from the cleats the lurch of the sail caught him,
and at the same moment the main-topgallant mast with all its belongings
coming down with a run, he was stunned for a second by some portion of
the falling gear, and before he could recover his balance or take hold
of anything to save himself by, was carried overboard with the wreck.

At nearly the same precise instant the boy darted out of the cabin aft,
just ahead of the skipper and Mr Rawlings, as if impelled by some
unfathomable instinct, and bounding right to the spot where Seth was
being swept away to destruction, clutched hold of the seaman's collar
with one hand, and one end of the topsail-halliards with the other as
they hung over the side, and there he remained, swaying to and fro,
partly in the water and partly out, holding on with the strength of his
single arm in a manner that no one would have thought a man, much less a
boy, could do--and neither man nor boy, except one bred to the sea!

Seth saw it all, though no one else noticed the action, even amidst the
conflicting emotions which passed rapidly through his mind at the moment
of his infinite peril, just as a man falling from a cliff and expecting
death every instant has the exact appearance of each foot of his rapid
descent photographed on his brain. He saw the distended startled blue
eyes of the boy, the light brown hair standing almost erect, the white
bandage round his forehead, the blood on his face; but he could not tell
nor think where he came from, and supposed, as he said afterwards, that
he was an angel come to save him--and he would regard him as such all
his life long!

"I'm darned if he warn't," he repeated, when the captain laughed when
Seth mentioned his sensations at the time and detailed his thoughts,
"fur he came just in the nick of time to grip holt o' me; and if he
hadn't ben thaar I guess it 'ud a ben all sockdolagar with Seth, I does!
He must have got what ye call a call, that he must! Guess you'd a
thought him a angel, if you'd been in this child's shoes!"

And so the crew all agreed when they heard from the steward Jasper his
account of how the boy had started out of the captain's cot, where he
had him in a sound sleep, and came out of the cabin straight to help
Seth--the negro's version of the story losing nothing, it need hardly be
mentioned, through his telling it with much pantomimic action, and his
frequent affirm