r-r-refit?"

I thought, "If ever you get back, don't refit," but I said: "Give me
the end of a rope, and I'll tow you into yon port farther along; and
on your lives," I urged, "do not go back round Cape Hawk, for it's
winter to the south of it."

They purposed making for Newcastle under jury-sails; for their
mainsail had been blown to ribbons, even the jigger had been blown
away, and her rigging flew at loose ends. The _Akbar_, in a word, was
a wreck.

"Up anchor," I shouted, "up anchor, and let me tow you into Port
Macquarie, twelve miles north of this."

"No," cried the owner; "we'll go back to Newcastle. We missed
Newcastle on the way coming; we didn't see the light, and it was not
thick, either." This he shouted very loud, ostensibly for my hearing,
but closer even than necessary, I thought, to the ear of the
navigating officer. Again I tried to persuade them to be towed into
the port of refuge so near at hand. It would have cost them only the
trouble of weighing their anchor and passing me a rope; of this I
assured them, but they declined even this, in sheer ignorance of a
rational course.

"What is your depth of water?" I asked.

"Don't know; we lost our lead. All the chain is out. We sounded with
the anchor."

"Send your dinghy over, and I'll give you a lead."

"We've lost our dinghy, too," they cried.

"God is good, else you would have lost yourselves," and "Farewell" was
all I could say.

The trifling service proffered by the _Spray_ would have saved their
vessel.

"Report us," they cried, as I stood on--"report us with sails blown
away, and that we don't care a dash and are not afraid."

"Then there is no hope for you," and again "Farewell." I promised I
would report them, and did so at the first opportunity, and out of
humane reasons I do so again. On the following day I spoke the
steamship _Sherman,_ bound down the coast, and reported the yacht in
distress and that it would be an act of humanity to tow her somewhere
away from her exposed position on an open coast. That she did not get
a tow from the steamer was from no lack of funds to pay the bill; for
the owner, lately heir to a few hundred pounds, had the money with
him. The proposed voyage to New Guinea was to look that island over
with a view to its purchase. It was about eighteen days before I heard
of the _Akbar_ again, which was on the 31st of May, when I reached
Cooktown, on the Endeavor River, where I found this news:

May 31, t