sked Devereux.

"Well, to be sure, I didn't think about that," answered O'Grady. "But
I'll volunteer to go and search for them, and probably others will come
and help me."

"I will, sir," exclaimed Paul, who overheard the conversation.

"And so will I," said Reuben Cole; "and what is more, even if the ship
does not go down, we shall starve if we don't, for there isn't a scrap
of food among any of us."

Alphonse also expressed his readiness to go on the expedition, but
O'Grady begged that he would remain and take care of Devereux. No time
was to be lost. As soon as there was sufficient light for them to see,
securing themselves by ropes, they slipped through a port and
disappeared. Devereux, who was unfit for any exertion, remained in the
chains. Some minutes passed. He became at last very anxious about his
companions. He shouted to them, but no one replied. It appeared to him
that the ship was turning over more, and settling deeper than before in
the water.

"They have only gone a short time before me," he thought. "It matters
but little, yet how unfit I am to die. But I must not yield without a
struggle. People in our circumstances have formed rafts and escaped;
why should not we? Though without food, or water, or compass, or chart,
we shall be badly off." He proposed his plan to Alphonse and the people
near him. All promised to obey his directions. They were on the point
of climbing along the masts to get at the lighter spars, when Paul poked
his head through a port, flourishing above it an axe.

"We've found them, we've found them," he shouted; "but there's no time
to be lost, for the water is already making its way through the
hatches."

The rest of the party appearing, corroborated this statement. Devereux
roused up his energies and distributed his crew, some at the masts, and
the rest at the shrouds.

"Cut off all, and cut together!" he shouted. In a minute every shroud
and stay and mast was cut through. The effect was instantaneous. The
ship rolled up on an even keel so rapidly, that Devereux and those with
him could with difficulty climb over the bulwarks to regain the deck.
Their condition was but little improved, for so much water had got down
below, that it seemed improbable the ship could swim long, and there she
lay a dismasted wreck in the middle of the wide Atlantic. The young
commander's first wish was to endeavour to clear the ship of water, but
the pumps were choked, and l