have been head to wind, when a sudden
squall burst upon her broadside and threw her on her beam-ends.

When this happened the mate sprang to the companion-hatch to get an axe,
intending to cut the weather-shrouds so that the masts might go
overboard and allow the ship to right herself, for, as she then lay, the
water was pouring into her. Tom Riggles was, when she heeled over,
thrown violently against the mate, and both men rolled to leeward. This
accident was the means of saving them for the time, for just then the
mizzen rigging gave way, the mast snapped across, and the captain and
some of the men who had been hastening aft were swept with the wreck
into the sea.

A few minutes elapsed ere Tom and the mate gained a place of partial
security on the poop. The scene that met their gaze there was terrible
beyond description. Not far ahead the sea roared in irresistible fury
on a reef of rocks, towards which the ship was slowly drifting. The
light of the moon was just sufficient to show that a few of the men were
still clinging to the rail of the forecastle, and that the rigging of
the main and foremasts still held fast.

"Have you got the hatchet yet?" asked Tom of the mate, who clung to a
belaying-pin close behind him.

"Ay, but what matters it whether we strike the rocks on our beam-ends or
an even keel?"

The mate spoke in the tones of a man who desperately dares the fate
which he cannot avoid.

"Here! let me have it!" cried Tom.

He seized the hatchet as he spoke and clambered to the gangway. A few
strokes sufficed to cut the overstrained ropes, and the mainmast snapped
off with a loud report, and the ship slowly righted.

"Hold on!" shouted Tom to a man who appeared to be slipping off the
bulwarks into the sea.

As no reply was given, the sailor boldly leapt forward, caught the man
by the collar, and dragged him into a position of safety.

"Why, Bill, my boy, is't you?" exclaimed the worthy man in a tone of
surprise, as he looked at the face of our hero, who lay on the deck at
his feet; but poor Bill made no reply, and it was not until a glass of
rum had been poured down his throat by his deliverer that he began to
recover.

Several of the crew who had clung to different parts of the wreck now
came aft one by one, until most of the survivors were grouped together
near the wheel, awaiting in silence the shock which they knew must
inevitably take place in the course of a few minutes, for the ship,