part I’m just thankful she didn’t run us down entirely. Those same

steamers are the terrors of the Banks. I mind well the last trip I was here in the old _Walpus_. We were lying to an anchor in a fog every bit as thick as this, and minding our own business, when one of them came rushing down on us. They paid no attention to our shouting, or to our horn, and turned neither to port nor starboard; but just came on tooting their old whistle for all other folks to get out of their way. Well, sir, we were all in the act of piling over the stern into the dories when she drove past within a handshake of the end of our jib-boom, and we could see the scared faces of the people on her deck looking down at us. She was that close that the patent log towing behind her caught on our cable and parted its line. We hauled it in the next day when we hove up our anchor. No, sir! none of your steamers for me! They’re too careless and overbearing-like, and I say we’ve just had a mighty lucky escape, and should be thankful for it. Come, now, stand your watch like a good fellow, and pull for Nova Scotia, or for some decent, easy-going sailing-vessel that’ll pick us up.”

So Breeze took a spell at the oars, and thus rowing by turn, and telling each other yarns of their own experience, or repeating what they had learned from others to divert their thoughts, they passed the second day in the dory.

The fog had not lifted for a single moment since morning, and when darkness again shut down upon them it still infolded them in its clammy embrace. Although the night was calm, they tossed their drag overboard lest a wind should rise while they slept. Then, after eating their scanty supper of a single biscuit each, they lay down, hugging each other closely for warmth, and prepared to pass the night in such comfort as their circumstances would permit.

Before they dropped asleep Breeze heard Wolfe say, as though talking to himself, “We must have made something over fifty miles to-day, and at the same rate we’ll soon reach the Nova Scotia coast now.”

Breeze smiled at this too evident attempt to cheer him; for he knew, as well as Wolfe, that they had not made more than twenty or twenty-five miles at the most, and that the coast towards which they were heading was still several hundred miles from them. Three more days would finish their biscuit at the rate they had been eating them, and even now he was so hungry that he felt they might as well starve at once as to try and economize them any longer. Their fresh water was already half gone, and altogether their prospect was a very gloomy one.

The night passed uneventfully, but before daylight Wolfe was awakened by an exclamation of dismay from his companion. “What is the trouble?” he inquired, sitting up stiffly.

“The ball is closed,” answered Breeze.

“Closed?”

“Yes; it must have got pushed together somehow while I was asleep, and I can’t get it open again.”

“And a good job, too,” said Wolfe. “Now we’ll have no excuse for rowing this day, and I’m glad; for my back’s broke thinking of it.”

“But don’t you want to get to Nova Scotia?”

“Indeed, I do not! An out-of-the-way place like that? I’d prefer to be picked up where we are by some craft that’ll take us into New York, or Boston, or maybe Gloucester itself.”

An hour later the sun rose, and under its cheerful influence the last trace of fog disappeared, and a perfect spring morning broke over the sparkling waters of the Grand Bank. It was just such a morning as would cause the New England birds to break forth in an ecstasy of song, and Breeze almost expected to hear them as he sat up in the dory and looked around.

His ears were not greeted by the songs of birds, but his eyes were gladdened by a sight so welcome that his first joyful exclamation was choked by his emotion.

Wolfe sprang up in alarm at the sound, only to see his friend pointing with trembling finger to the southward. There, not more than half a mile from them, he saw a square-rigged, deeply laden vessel, rising and falling gracefully on the long swells.

The next moment Breeze had cut the line that held them to their drag with a blow from his sheath-knife, and, under the impulse of two pairs of oars, dory No. 6 was surging over the calm waters as it had never before been driven in all its storm-tossed career.

The dorymates spoke no word to each other, nor looked around, until they paused, breathless and panting, close beside the vessel. Although there was not a breath of wind, they had feared that somehow she might sail away and leave them. Now that there was no danger of that, they sat in their boat and gazed at her curiously. Her bottom was covered with sea-grass and barnacles, and she was weather-beaten to the last degree, though her spars were all in place and she still looked stanch and seaworthy. Not a human being was to be seen on board of her, nor did their hail receive any answer.

The strangest feature of the brigantine, for such she was, lay in her sails and rigging. Instead of showing a cloud of light canvas, as would naturally be expected in such weather, she was under a double-reefed main-sail, single-reefed fore-topsail, and fore-staysail only. Her fore-course was clewed up but not stowed, and the royal was furled; but the topgallant-sail seemed to have been blown away, judging from the few streamers of tattered canvas that still hung from the yard. Her running rigging was either hanging at loose ends, or tangled in the greatest confusion. To crown all, a ragged American ensign drooped at half-mast, and union down, from her main-peak.

The boys pulled entirely around the vessel several times, wondering at her condition, but still unable by their shouts to attract the attention of her crew. On her stern they read her name, _Esmeralda_, of Baltimore.

Finally Breeze spied a rope hanging over her side near the fore-chains, and proposed that they board her by it. Having tested it and found it strong enough for their purpose, they went up hand over hand. Breeze was the first to clamber over the bulwarks and gain her deck. It was absolutely deserted, and he walked aft while Wolfe was making the dory fast.

There was something mysterious and awful about this apparently deserted brig that caused Breeze to shiver and gaze about him apprehensively. He walked as far aft as the quarter-deck, and as he gained it a gaunt, pale-faced man came slowly up the companion-way leading down into the cabin, and stood looking at him. Breeze, too, stared for a moment, and then sprang towards the trembling figure.