in it. The crew of the captain's gig were busy
with that craft, and it was all ready to lower.

"Get in, Bob," said the commander of the _Eagle_. "And you too,
Mr. Tarbill."

"Aren't you coming?" asked Bob.

"I'm the last one in," was the sad answer, and then the boy
understood that the captain is always the last to leave a sinking
ship.

"Shall we get in before you lower it?" asked Bob of the sailors who
stood at the davit ropes.

"Yes. We can lower it with you two in. The captain and we can
slide down the ropes. We're used to it, but it's ticklish business
for land-lubbers." And the man grinned even in that time of terror.

Captain Spark had gone to his cabin for his log book, the ship's
papers, and his nautical instruments. As he came out the red sun
showed for an instant above the horizon.

"If we had seen that a few hours sooner we wouldn't be here now,"
remarked the commander sadly. "But it's too late now."

The other boats had pulled away from the wreck. Bob and Mr.
Tarbill got into the gig and were lowered to the surface of the
heaving ocean.

"Take an oar and fend her away from the ship's side a bit," the
captain advised Bob. "Else a wave may smash the gig."

Bob did so. Mr. Tarbill was shivering too much with fear to be of
any help. A few seconds later the two sailors who had lowered the
boat at the captain's orders leaped into the gig as a wave lifted
it close to the _Eagle's_ rail. Then the commander, carrying a few
of his possessions and with a last look around his beloved ship,
made the same jump and was in his gig.

"Pull away," he commanded sorrowfully, and the sailors rowed out
from the foundered ship.

When they were a little way off they rested on their oars. All
around them was a waste of heaving waters. The two other boats
came up, and the occupants looked at the _Eagle_ settling lower and
lower as the water filled her. The wrecked ship, now sunk almost
to her deck level, seemed, save for the three boats, to be the only
object in sight on the bosom of the tumultuous ocean.

"Well, men, give way!" at length called the captain, with a sigh.
"We may be sighted by some vessel, or we may land on an island.
There are several islands hereabouts, if we are not too far away
from them."

Then, bending to the oars, the sailors sent the boats away from the
wreck. Bob and his friends were afloat on the big ocean in small
boats that, at any moment, might be swamped by a might