long to the forecastle himself with a coil over his arm, that he might
fling it to the man in the water as soon as he floated within reach.

It was a task that had to be deftly performed, for the ship was forging
through the sea, and plunging her bowsprit under water as she rose and
fell in her progress, one minute describing a half-circle through the
air with her forefoot as she yawed to the heavy rolling waves, the next
diving deep down into the billows and tossing up tons of water over her
forecastle, where the skipper stood, watching his opportunity, as the
broken spars, on which he could now plainly see that the figure of a man
was lashed, swept nearer and nearer on the crest of a wave that bore
them triumphantly on high above the storm-wrack and foam.

While the wreckage was yet out of reach he could notice, too, that the
figure was perfectly motionless and still.

What the topman had taken to be an outstretched hand, waving a
handkerchief or some fluttering object, was only the ragged end of a
piece of the sail that was still attached to the yard and a part of the
topmast of some vessel, which had been torn away by the violence of the
gale and cast adrift, with the unfortunate seaman who was clinging to
it.

"Poor chap!" thought the American captain aloud, "I'm afraid there's not
much life left in him now; but if there is any, I reckon we'll save
him." And, as he uttered the words, he dexterously threw one end of the
coil of rope, which he had already formed into a running bowline knot,
over the spars as they were swept past the side of the _Susan Jane_,
while he fastened the other end fast in-board, slackening out the line
gradually, so as not to bring it up too tight all at once and so jerk
the man off the frail raft.

"Easy there,"--he called out to the men aft. "Let her head off a bit
now, and brail up that mainsail again. Easy! Belay!"

"Thank God, we've got him!" ejaculated. Mr Rawlings, the solitary
passenger on board the _Susan Jane_.

By this time, the waif from the wreck was towing safely alongside the
_Susan Jane_, in the comparatively smooth water of the ship's lee; and
in a few seconds the rough seamen who went to their captain's assistance
had detached the seemingly lifeless form of the survivor from the spars
to which he had been securely lashed, and lifted him, with the
gentleness and tender care almost of women, on board the vessel that had
come so opportunely in his way.

"Slacken