nds looked up. The dark outline of the schooner was visible
flying by them. Just then a vivid flash of lightning darted from the
sky. There was a loud crackling noise heard even amid the raging of the
rising tempest; the flame ran down the schooner's mainmast. Shrieks
reached their ears; there was a loud roar like a single clap of thunder
without an echo; the whole dark mass seemed to rise in the air, and here
and there dark spots could be seen, and splashes could be heard close to
the vessel, and for a few seconds flames burst forth from where the
schooner had been seen; but in an instant they disappeared and not a
trace of her could be discovered. The dismantled brig floated alone,
surrounded by darkness on the wild tumultuous ocean.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

The dismasted brig lay tumbling about, utterly helpless. Neither moon
nor stars were visible. The seas came roaring up around her, now
throwing her on one side, now on the other. Her stern-boat had already
been cut adrift.

Not long after the disappearance of the schooner, a sea struck her
quarter and carried away one of the boats on that side, and at the next
roll the one on the opposite quarter went.

Mr Nott, with Paul and Marline, and the three boys, were clustered aft.

"Paul," observed True Blue, "the Frenchman and black can't play us any
tricks now. They run a great chance of being drowned where they are;
couldn't we cast them loose and let them come aft here?"

"Right, Billy," answered Paul. "We should be merciful even to our
enemies. I had forgotten them."

Mr Nott offering no objection, Paul and True Blue worked their way to
the waist, where the two men sat bound. Paul loosened the Frenchman,
and True Blue took out his knife and cut the lashings which bound the
black; and then, assisting him up on his legs, pointed aft, and by a
push in that direction intimated that he had better get there as soon as
possible.

Billy then bethought him of the wounded prisoner in the dark damp
forepeak, all alone, expecting every instant to be his last. "I
shouldn't like to be left thus," he thought; "I'll go and see what I can
do for him."

Without, therefore, telling Paul what he was going to do, he worked his
way gradually forward, grasping tightly on by the belaying-pins and
cleats made fast to the bulwarks.

Just as he got close to the fore-hatch, he saw rolling up, just ahead of
the vessel, what looked like a huge black mountain with a snowy