“We must throw her into the trough of the sea, mate, else we are lost,” continued he, as the disabled apparatus failed to steer, and a swelling, growling sea came speeding on.

A crash, a splash, and a shiver—and the big ship lay as if stunned, and debating whether after all life is worth the trial. Then slowly she began to rise, and the terrible suspense was over. Caged and fearful men were now assured of her determination to survive, and they loved and praised and trusted her. There was no longer any doubt, but every soul would have pledged his life that she would win the battle. Rising again she rolled to starboard, as if bantering her oncoming assailant for the second trial. This one, larger, though calmer than the first, took her amidship and heaved her over on her port side; then as if unmindful rolled on and over the submerged ship. Not a man lost his courage as she sank and sank, and seemed to go farther and farther toward the ghoulish bottom, but with each faint feeling there came a responsive voice that rang with certainty:

“She’ll win, boys; just give her time.”

Presently she sank no more, but rested, as if satisfied to venture no farther. Then she raised a little, then more, and still more, until at last she leaped upon the surface and bounded about like a cork on the water. She had won, and the third wave pushed her down, and dropped her broadside into the trough of the sea. There she lay, and tossed at the water’s will until the morning of the second day, when the typhoon had passed and the seas were again calm.

Shibusawa’s disappearance was lamented by none but two. When cast adrift he was so blinded by the spray and drenched with water that he could neither see nor hear. Fortunately his frail raft did not capsize but remained right side up, and he clung fast with a tenacity possessed only by one who is in the very jaws of horrible death. He was a good swimmer and accustomed to the water, else he might not have fared even so well as not to have been washed away.

All night long he drifted in the darkness, not knowing where he was or just how he came to be there. He knew nothing of such conditions and had never heard of a similar circumstance, yet instinct told him how best to make use of the slender means at hand; necessity moved him to do so. The wind blew and the seas lashed. He did not cry out, nor did he lose courage, for he had resolved to meet his fate like a man. Day came and passed and he was still alone. Toward night the wind had gone down, and he could relax his hold and ease his tired arms and numb limbs. He quenched his thirst a bit from the skin of water, which he still carried, and then ate sparingly of the rice in his pocket. As the gloom began to turn into darkness he for the last time stretched himself and looked around, but could see nothing except perilous waters. For many long hours he nerved himself to the task, and not until the sun rose the next morning did he succumb to the terrible exhaustion. Then he sank down and saw no more, but dreamed of Kinsan and of the rescue that soon would save him from a watery grave.

It was about three o’clock of that afternoon when the Fair Puget, a lumber schooner from Puget Sound, hove into sight on her return trip from Shanghai, where she had recently discharged a cargo of timber. The trim little ship was sailing under a fair wind and the veteran captain, Thomas N. Thompson, was at the wheel.

“Come here, Jack,” said he to his lone mate, as he knocked the ashes from a rusty box-elder pipe, which he jammed into his grey trousers hip pocket. “Try the glasses on yon bit of drift, Jack, and see if y’u c’n make out the like of it.”

Jack took the long, brass-trimmed, rust-stained glasses and adjusted them to his widely set eyes, threw his shoulders back and his middle forward, and squinted with first one eye, then the other. Presently he lowered the glasses and with much deliberation drew from his washed-out overalls pocket a long plug of navy, from which he calmly bit a huge quid. He then raised the glasses a second time, taking great pains as he did so to re-adjust and fit them to the importance of the occasion. After several times shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he lowered the glasses and placed his arms akimbo and said in an offhand manner:

“I don’t see nothin’. I guess it’s a log’r two adrift. Glad we don’t have to reef in—she’s makin’ a deuced good eight knots now, and I don’t see no let up ahe’d.”