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“A sail! A sail!” The seas had somewhat abated and the Rose of Devon was standing on her course under reefed mainsail when the cry sounded.

The vessel they sighted lay low in the water; and since she had one tall mast forward and what appeared to be a lesser mast aft they thought her a ketch. But while they debated the matter the faint sound of guns fired in distress came over the sea; and loosing the reef of their mainsail and standing directly toward the stranger, the men in the Rose of Devon soon made her out to be, instead, a ship which had lost her mainmast and mizzenmast and was wallowing like a log. While the Rose of Devon was still far off, her men saw that some of the strange crew were aloft in the rigging and that others were huddled on the quarter-deck; and when, in the late afternoon, she came up under the stranger’s stern, the unknown master and his men got down on their knees on the deck and stretched their arms above their bare heads.

"Save us,” they cried in a doleful voice, ‘‘for the Lord Jesus’ sake! For our ship hath six-foot water in the hold and we can no longer keep her afloat.”

In all the Rose of Devon there was not a heart but relented at their lamentable cry, not a man but would do his utmost to lend them aid.