cked. "They are very quiet, poor chaps. I wonder if they are
all dead?"

The same thought seemed to have occurred to the old commodore; for, as I
said this, in pursuance of some order he must have given to that
effect--for nobody does a thing on board a man-o'-war without the
previous command of his superior officer--the boatswain hailed the
little craft.

"Boat ahoy!" he shouted, with his lungs of brass and voice of a bull.
"Ahoy! Ahoy-oy!"

No answer came, nor was there any movement amongst the boat's occupants,
who were lying pell-mell along the thwarts and on the bottom boards in
her sternsheets.

"Poor fellows, they must be all dead!" exclaimed the commodore, almost
in my own words. "Mr Osborne, get a boat ready to send off and
overhaul her!"

The officer of the watch, however, had already made preparations to this
end, the first cutter's crew having been piped and the men standing
ready by the davits to lower her into the water, with the gripes cast
off and the falls cleared.

"All ready there, coxsun, eh?" he cried; and then, without waiting for
any answer, he sang out, "Lower away!"

Down glided the cutter into the water as the hands inboard eased off the
falls; and, her crew having dropped their oars, the next minute she was
pulling out towards the boat, which was now only some twenty yards or so
off the ship, abreast of our mizzen-chains.

Of course, we could see from the ship all that went on as the cutter
sheered up to the derelict craft. The bowman was standing up with his
boathook ready to hook on when he got near enough, and Mr Osborne, the
`first luff,' standing up likewise astern to inspect the better the boat
and its motionless occupants, he himself having gone away in the cutter,
seeing how anxious the commodore seemed in the matter, instead of
sending a young midshipman as usual.

Something strange must have happened, for, as our boat touched the
other, we could hear a startled cry from Mr Osborne, followed by a sort
of suppressed groan from the cutter's crew.

This reached the commodore's ear. "Cutter, ahoy!" he hailed. "Any one
alive?"

"No, sir," came back the reply from Mr Osborne, in a sad tone. "All
are dead--and a fearful death too!"

"Why," called out the commodore eagerly, as curious as all of us were,
"what's the matter?"

"Struck by lightning, I think, sir," answered Mr Osborne, who held his
handkerchief to his face and spoke in a stifled voice, after bending
dow