Two more sailors lay lifeless on the poop, killed either by the electric current or the falling iron, and Rolf, Tom, Bess, and the captain with seven men clung close together on the miserable wreck that had once been the gallant Seabird.

In such emergencies as these there are some who can think quickly. The cracking of timbers had not ceased before Rolf shouted to the men to prepare the jolly-boat, and himself plunged into the fast-filling cabin to secure provisions for her. A bag of biscuits and two or three bottles of wine were thrown into the boat. The cook came hurrying up with a ham, and leaped into the boat beside Tom Epp, who was standing in her, preparing to receive the captain. With the impetus of this spring the rope that held the boat, and which had probably been burned by the lightning, parted. In the gathering night and the fearful blackness of the down-sweeping squall, the jolly-boat was whirled away from the helpless hulk of the Seabird, and the loud, despairing cry of Tom Epp came back to the ears of those whom he, perishing, had left to perish alone.

In the wild glare of the lightnings could now be seen on the sinking and utterly dismantled ship Captain Adams, prostrate on his mattress, Bess and Rolf clinging to each other and to him, and five sailors, two of them helpless from injuries.

"We're going down!" shouted one of the sailors wildly. No one answered him. He screamed the despairing words again, and driven mad by his fears, rushed to meet the very fate he dreaded, and leaped into the sea. But the others on that wreck were made of sterner stuff. God inspires His children in their hour of need. "I don't believe the Seabird can sink," said Bess to Rolf. Her cargo's all light, and will help float her."

"No," said Rolf, "she can't go to the bottom, though she may go to the edge of the water. Come, boys," he cried, speaking his hopes rather than his doubts, "we'll float. Let us take care of those who cannot take care of themselves." And even in the

depth of their misery these brave hearts answered him by a cheery "Ay, ay, sir!"

"Don't fear for the hulk, she'll float," cried Rolf. lash fast to her, and look to be picked up."

"We must

The stump of the mainmast offered their only refuge, and Rolf, Bess, and one of the sailors set themselves to lash Captain Adams and themselves to this, while Jerry, the other sailor, attended to his disabled mates.

The last thunder and lightning, while it had completed the destruction of the ship, had also exhausted the fury of the storm, and what wind there was drove them from the breakers still, though the filling ship moved very heavily, and there was neither canvas nor rudder to aid her course.

Your true sailor is apt in all emergencies. Rolf and his assisttant, Luke, knew how to make the best of everything without loss of time. The waves were now sweeping across the Seabird, and she rolled dangerously; but these disadvantages only urged the men to quicker labours.

The pumps of the Seabird had been put in close to the mainmast on either side; between the pump left unharmed by the lightning and the mast Rolf and Luke contrived, by aid of the door of the aft staircase of the cabin, a sort of rest, whereon they placed the disabled captain as easily as was possible, and lashed him fast, Bess exerting all her skill to contrive a place of support for his head, and by means of a blanket, which had come up with the mattress, and a rope, to fasten his feet so that they would be out of danger of further injury from the motion of the ship. Jerry, having secured his brother sailors, who seemed almost unconscious, made a heroic effort to get food from below. He succeeded in obtaining a part of a box of raisins, the lower layers of which were ruined by the sea-water; but the upper ones were dry, and of these he made a hasty division.

The last gray twilight showed the sea much calmer, and the ship sunk quite to the water's edge, yet rolling less than she had been doing. Luke, Jerry, and the two injured sailors were lashed together near the broken cabin skylight on the quarter-deck. Captain Adams, Bess, and Rolf were secured to the stump of the mainmast, and thus the night closed around them, they not expecting to see another morning.

They felt the ship settling and the water rising around them in the night. At last Bess found that the water ceased to rise. At dawn the sea was quiet, except for the long, slow swells of the late storm, and the sun shone forth for the first time for many days. The quarter-deck was well out of the water, but the main-deck was covered; and while Captain Adams was secured above water, Bess and Rolf stood deep in it. Captain Adams seemed quiet, but the contractions of his face at times showed that he was conscious of severe pain. To Bess's terrible dismay, Rolf was evidently in a high state of fever, and his breathing was strangely oppressed. "One of those mast-hoops struck my chest yesterday, and it has injured me badly," he said to Bess.

Bess had kept their portion of raisins and the remainder of the olive-oil brought her by the cook out of the water, and she gave some of both to her companions. The poor sailors had been sleeping; but the increasing daylight now awoke them, and presently Jerry called from the quarter-deck, "Matt's dead, captain." There was a solemn silence, then Captain Adams whispered to his daughter, and she called, "Cut the body loose, and let it go overboard, Jerry!" Jerry obeyed; but as the corpse of his mate slipped almost out of his reach, he leaned after it, and dragging it back began hastily searching it. Alas! he was looking for food, and was rewarded by discovering a dried herring. Men give their thousands with less generosity than Jerry showed when he divided that herring with Luke, while the body of his late comrade rolled heavily into the sea.

"There's no sail in sight, and we can't hold out this way long!" cried Luke presently. Then after a whisper from his third companion, he added, "And Ned says he's dying, and, Mistress Adams,

if you get home to Lucky Cove, you're to take his message to his wife and children."

"Give me the message, Luke," cried Bess; "but I trust God will send safety to us all, even at this hour."

It was a short message the sailor took from his comrade's feeble lips: "Tell 'em he found the Lord as nigh on sea as on shore; and they're to look to meet him in heaven; and-God is the God of the widow and the orphan."

"Bess," said Captain Adams, "Rolf and I are past speaking so as to be heard; it remains for you to comfort our hearts."

There was no sound but the sullen lapping of the waves about the water-logged ship.

"Boys," cried Bess, "my father says it is the hour for morning prayer." And with a clear voice she began the Forty-second Psalm: "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!" How fervently rang these words! Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy water-spouts: all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."

This was no hour for ceremony. The full hearts of all her listeners followed the words, and Jerry burst forth with the answer, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

All day not a sign of help; the dismantled hulk, with her suffering burden, drifting drearily upon the sea. A few raisins and the carefully-doled-out oil were all that Bess had for the sick men on either side of her. The three sailors were out of reach, and they had only raisins. Night once more settled over the sea.

"How is Ned?" cried Bess to the sailors.

"He's going fast," answered Jerry; "and that's well for him. I bear in mind those words, Better are the dead that are already dead than the living that are yet alive.'"

And now Ned himself spoke out clearly in the silence of the night:

66

Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of Thy wings." Thus, even on these dangerous waters, Captain Adams gathered of that bread of life which he had scattered with lavish hand in all seas where he had sailed.

The captain and the men slept during the night, but Rolf was wakeful from illness, and Bess felt as if sleep was for ever banished, with these two whom she loved most in all the world apparently dying on either side of her. And now one while she whispered the plaintive wailings of the Psalms into her lover's ear, these two, like David, crying unto God out of the depths; or again she

recalled for him the merry hours of their childhood, the days in the school-house.at the Corners, the boating trips with lost Tom, their adventures along the shore, and their night on Gull Peak.

"How safe we should feel there now, Rolf, with a drift-wood fire, and fish to roast, and the lights of Lucky Cove almost to be seen in the distance! Ah! my poor Lucy and little lads and pretty baby at home, who will win your bread, now we are gone?" "Don't fear for them, Bess," said Rolf; "if we three go down together at sea, be sure my father will look to them ashore."

Morning struggled slowly into the east once more. There was no need to ask of Ned's welfare; during the night he had passed into that land where there is no more sea. The last of the food was divided, and then Bess, without waiting for her father's request, began the psalm, "The Lord is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and are troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof."

As it came near noon, Jerry scrambled from his place, and, climbing the stump of the mainmast, which stood about twelve feet high, fastened his red shirt to the top for a signal. Three hours later a ship, evidently making for Grey Town, came in sight; she presently observed the wreck, hove to and lowered a boat. Jerry and Luke beheld the joyful vision, and called to Bess. Rolf and the captain were unconscious. In a quarter of an hour more the long-boat of the ship was beside them.

The strangers found "the hull of the Seabird lying almost entirely under water; the captain and second officer lashed to the mainmast in a senseless condition; the captain's daughter between these two, endeavouring to support the head of each; a dead sailor on the quarter-deck, and two other sailors much exhausted. They had been floating in this way for forty-five hours." This was the report made on the ship's log.

Ready hands removed first the captain and then Rolf to the long-boat; Bess followed them. The body of Ned was lashed up in the blanket that had been about the captain, and was thus hastily committed to the sea, and then the long-boat returned to the ship, food and water being served out to the rescued ones on the way. The best that the ship had was at their disposal, and in thirty-six hours after, she landed at Grey Town, and placed the five survivors of the Seabird in hospital.

HE that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit in the centre and enjoy bright days,
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun :
Himself in his own dungeon.

-Milton.

THE SQUIRE OF SANDAL-SIDE.

BY AMELIA E. BARR.

CHAPTER VI.-THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

THERE are days which rise sadly, go on without sunshine, and påss into night without one gleam of colour. Life, also, has these pallid, monotonous hours. A distrust of all things invades the soul, and physical inertia and mental languor make daily existence a simple weight. It was Christmas-time, but the squire felt none of the elation of the season. He was conscious that the old festival preparations were going on, but there was no response to them in his heart. Julius had arrived, and was helping Sophia to hang the holly and mistletoe. But Sandal knew that his soul shrank from the nephew he had called into his life; knew that the sound of his voice irritated him, that his laugh filled him with resentment, that his very presence in the house seemed to desecrate it, and to slay for him the very idea of home.

Inside the house there was a pleasant air and stir of preparation; the rapid movements of servants, the shutting and opening of doors, the low laughter of gay hearts well contented with the time and the circumstances. Outside, the mesmerizing snow was falling with a soft, silent persistence. The squire looked sadly at the white hills, and the white park, and the branches bending under their load, and the sombre sky, gray upon darker gray.

Last Christmas the girls had relied entirely upon his help. He had found the twine, and driven the nails, and steadied the ladder when Sophia's light form mounted it in order to hang the mistletoe. They had been so happy. The echo of their voices, their snatches of Christmas carols, their laughter and merry badinage, was still in his heart. But to-day he had not been asked to assist in the decorations. True, he had said, in effect, that he did not wish to assist; but, all the same, he felt shut out from his old pre-eminence; and he could not help regarding Julius Sandal as a usurper.

These were drearisome Christmas thoughts and feelings; and they found their climax in a pathetic complaint, "I never thought Charlotte would have given me the go-by. All along she has taken my side, no matter what came up. Oh, my little lass!"

As if in answer to the heart-cry, Charlotte opened the door. She was dressed in furs and tweeds, and she had the squire's big coat and woollen wraps in her hand. Before he could speak, she had reached his chair, and put his arm across his shoulder, and said, in her bright, confidential way, "Come, father, let you and me have a bit of pleasure by ourselves: there isn't much comfort in the house to-day."

"You say right, Charlotte; you do so, my dear. go? Eh? Where?"

"Wherever you like best.

Where shall we

There is no snow to hamper us yet.