d you?" asked Captain Weber,
"I thought our cargo had shifted a little in the late gale, and I had
been overhauling it. That night I was seated with my first mate in the
cabin when a furious explosion shook the ship. I was thrown down, and
how long I remained insensible I don't know. When I did come to I found
myself surrounded with wreck, everything smashed, the bulkheads driven
in, and the ship split in her waterway. Hardly had I realised the
extent of the misfortune when the cry of fire was heard. In a moment
the remainder of the naphtha was in flames, and I had hardly time to get
on deck."

"And the boats?" asked Captain Hughes.

"Blown to chips," was the reply. "I ordered the mainmast to be cut
away, but the flames were too quick for us, and all we could do was to
cut adrift the mainboom. I and Miller managed to reach it. The ship
was now burning fore and aft, and presently, as you saw, went down
bodily, the whole of the naphtha rising to the surface in a sea of
flame. I saw many of my poor fellows swim in this bath of fire. My
mate and steward went down beside me. The cook had lashed himself to a
piece of wreck, and for a quarter of an hour I heard his cries, then
they ceased suddenly. The rest you know."

A bustle on deck, a loud shout, and then a voice repeating the welcome
words, "Land ho!" disturbed the breakfast party, who hurried up the
hatchway, the poor, spirit-broken master of the "Argonaut" alone
remaining below. What to him was land? He had no ship, no crew to care
for. The fierce flame and the seething ocean had brought him ruin.

The wind was now well abaft the beam, and even to those on deck the long
cloud-like outline of land was soon, visible, as, every sail set that
would draw, the brig worked her way on, rising and falling on the long
seas, now rolling heavily to leeward as she sank in the green trough,
now lifting on the surging wave and heeling over as her loftier canvas
felt the full force of the breeze, until she showed her bright clean
copper nearly to her keel, only the next moment to dash her wedge-like
bows into the foam, sending the glittering particles high into the air,
deluging the forecastle with green water, as she drove onward towards
land. Above, the bright clear sky of an African day; the gulls and the
Mother Carey's chickens wheeling and circling round the masts. Captain
Weber, proud of his brig, felt she was doing her best, while by his side
walked the capt