-night," said Shales, as Jim's head was disappearing down the
hatchway, "stir up the fire and keep yourself warm."

"That's just what I mean to do," replied Jim; "sorry I can't communicate
some of the warmth to you."

"But you can think of us," cried Jack, looking down the hatchway, "you
can at least pity us poor babes out here in the wind and snow!"

"Shut up, Jack!" said Moy with a solemn growl, "wot a tremendous jaw
you've got w'en you let loose! Why, wot are 'ee starin' at now? 'Ave
'ee seed a ghost?"

"No, Dick," said Shales, in a tone of voice from which every vestige of
jocularity had disappeared; "look steady in the direction of the South
sandhead light and--see! ain't that the flash of a gun?"

"It looks like it. A wreck on the sand, I fear," muttered Dick Moy,
putting up both hands to guard his eyes from the snow-flakes that were
driven wildly about by the wind, which had by that time increased to a
furious gale.

For a few minutes the two men stood gazing intently towards the
south-west horizon. Presently a faint flash was seen, so faint that
they could not be certain it was that of a signal-gun. In a few
minutes, however, a thin thread of red light was seen to curve upwards
into the black sky.

"No mistake now," cried Jack, leaping towards the cabin skylight, which
he threw up, and bending down, shouted--"South sandhead light is firing,
sir, and sending up rockets!"

The mate, who was at the moment in the land of dreams, sprang out of
them and out of his bunk, and stood on the cabin floor almost before the
sentence was finished. His son, who had just drawn the blanket over his
shoulders, and given vent to the first sigh of contentment with which a
man usually lays his head on his pillow for the night, also jumped up,
drew on coat, nether garments, and shoes, as if his life depended on his
speed, and dashed on deck. There was unusual need for clothing that
night, for it had become bitterly cold, a coat of ice having formed even
on the salt-water spray which had blown into the boats. They found Dick
Moy and Jack Shales already actively engaged--the one loading the lee
gun, the other adjusting a rocket to its stick. A few hurried questions
from the mate elicited all that it was needful to know. The flash of
the gun from the South sandhead lightship, about six miles off, had been
distinctly seen a third time, and a third rocket went up just as Welton
and his son gained the deck, indicating tha