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many lives. At all events it was then too late to save either the man or the boat, for although they strove thereafter to do as the Old One bade them, the boat had already thumped against the side of the ship and it was each man for himself and the Devil take the last.

The men above threw other ropes and bent over to give a hand to the poor fellows below, and all but the man who had sunk came scrambling safe on board.

The Old One leaned out and looked down at the boat, which lay full of water, with a great hole in her side.

“I would have given my life sooner than let this happen,” he said. ‘‘There are seven men left on board our ship, who trusted me to save them. Indeed, I had not come away but these feared lest without the master you should refuse to take them. What say ye, my baw-cocks, shall we venture back for our shipmates?”

Looking down at the boat and at the gaping holes the sea had stove by throwing her against the Rose of Devon, the men made no reply.

“Not one will venture back? Is there no one of ye?”

“'T were madness,” one began. ‘‘We should — ”

"See! She hath gone adrift!”

And in truth, her gunwales under water, the boat was already drifting astern. At the end of the painter, which a Rose of Devon’s man still held, there dangled a piece of broken board.

‘“Let us bring thy ship nigh under the lee of mine,” the Old One cried to Captain Candle. ‘‘It may be that by passing a line we can yet save them.”

“It grieves me sorely to refuse them aid, but to approach nearer, with the darkness now drawing upon us, were an act of folly that might well cost the lives of us all. Mine own ship is leaking perilously and in