eather had come on.

The mate quitted the helm, and ran forward to throw a rope to the seamen
who were struggling in the water with the wreck to leeward. He threw
one, which was seized by two of them (the other had sunk); and as soon
as they had hold of it and it became _taut_ from their holding on, he
perceived to his dismay that he had stood in the remaining part of the
coil, and that it had encircled itself several times round his body, so
that the men were hauling him overboard. "Let go, let go, or I'm
overboard!" was a useless exclamation to drowning men; they held on, and
the mate too held on by the rigging for his life,--the efforts of the
drowning men dragging him at last from off his legs, and keeping his
body in a horizontal position, as they hauled at his feet, and he clung
in desperation to the lee-shrouds. "Willy, Willy, a knife--quick,
quick!" roared the mate in his agony. Willy, who, hearing his name
called, and followed up by the "quick, quick," had no idea that anything
but the mulled claret could demand such unusual haste, stopped a few
seconds to throw in the sugar and stir it round before he answered the
summons. He then started up the hatchway with the pot in his hand.

But these few seconds had decided the fate of Mr Bullock, and as
Willy's head appeared up the hatchway, so did that of Mr Bullock
disappear as he sank into a grave so dissonant to his habits. He had
been unable to resist any longer the united force of the drowning men,
and Willy was just in time to witness his submersion, and find himself
more destitute than ever. Holding on by the shroud with one hand, with
the pot of mulled claret in the other, Willy long fixed his eyes on the
spot where his tyrannical shipmate had disappeared from his sight, and,
forgetting his persecution, felt nothing but sorrow for his loss.
Another sea, which poured over the decks of the unguided vessel, roused
him from his melancholy reverie, and he let go the pot, to cling with
both hands to the rigging as the water washed over his knees,--then,
seizing a favourable opportunity, he succeeded in regaining the cabin of
the vessel, where he sat down and wept bitterly--bitterly for the loss
of the master's mate and men, for he had an affectionate and kind
heart--bitterly for his own forlorn and destitute situation. Old Adams
had not forgotten to teach him to say his prayers, and Willy had been
accustomed to read the Bible, which the old man explained to