"I'm not so certain that you'll regard it as good fortune," said an old voyager. "Sometimes these things are tragic, especially in a rising gale, when your own boat's crew may be lost in the attempt."
"Do you think it may come to that?"
"Ay, man, it may in such a sea; but let us hope for the best. See, we are coming abreast of the cripple. But we must cross to the other side; our ship will go to windward of her." And marvelling at the old voyager's sea lore, the new one went with the others to the weather-rail, where the force of the gale came upon them and beat their breath back into their nostrils.
"Heaven's mercy!" exclaimed the new voyager, "but it is a sad sight."
She was a little schooner of some fifty tons. Her foremast had been carried away about ten feet above the deck, and had taken with it her jib-boom and her maintopmast. The forecastle deck was a litter of broken timbers and tangled cordage that washed pitiably from side to side as the waters rolled over the splintered rail, or sobbed through its gaping seams. The mainboom was lashed amidships, and a jib-headed storm trysail was sheeted aft. A spare jib had been set from the mainmast head to the stump of the foremast, and under these two cloths the poor maimed craft was desperately striving to keep her shattered head to the threatening seas. High up in the main rigging flew the United States flag, union down, poor Jack's red, white, and blue cry for help. There was an ominous heaviness about the fall of her bows into the restless hollows that told the Captain of the Mohawk that she had not long to live.
"We'll send a boat for you," he roared down the wind, as his steamer slipped slowly ahead.
The hapless wretches on the schooner waved their hands and uttered a faint cheer. The whale-boat was lowered away when the Mohawk was half a mile to windward of the wreck. The buoyant little craft leaped over the waves, disappearing between them, and then tossing high in air on their foamy crests.
"It's all a wonder to me that she doesn't capsize," said the new voyager.
"A good whale-boat will outlive a poor ship," said the veteran.
