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“A man and a woman, sir,” called up the mate. “There’s life in ’em both, but precious little.”

It was nice work getting the two boats alongside and the bodies out of them and up to the deck; but it was done by the aid of slings, the woman being brought up first. Uncle John, by virtue of his profession, gave directions as to placing her on the deck, and then knelt by her side. I stood aloof. Why had that woman come to us in mid-ocean! Why was it? Fate?

“She is alive,” cried Uncle John. “Captain, we must get her below at once.”

I glanced at the woman. Thick locks of matted black hair lay around a face on which the sun and wind and the salt sea-water had done fearful work. And yet those blackened and blistered features somehow had a familiar look. Where had I seen them? I could not tell. Four sailors carried her below and I turned to look at her companion, who had been laid on the deck. Uncle John just took time to grasp his wrist and said, “He’s alive, too”; then he dropped the limp hand and hurried below. Always the way. Women first. This dying man might get what attention he could. The woman must be nursed back to life to deceive the first fool that takes her fancy. I turned to the man, a common sailor evidently, brawny and bearded. The mate was by his side, and together we did what we could to nourish the spark of life that kept the pulse feebly fluttering in the big brown wrist. It was afternoon when these two waifs were found, and all night we fought with death. Now Uncle John says that he thinks that they will live. Neither of them has spoken, but each has taken a little nourishment and the pulse shows gaining strength. Captain Raymond has turned his cabin over to the woman, and as I write uncle is sitting by her side. For the time he has forgotten his wonderful explosive. The old professional air has come back, and he is like the Dr. Hartley of the days before he gave up medicine for chemical investigation. The question continually repeats itself to me, What has brought this woman here? Reason as I may, I feel, I know, that she has come to me; to me who was happy in the thought of not seeing her kind for months. Another question asks itself, Has she come for good or ill? There can be but one answer to that question.

March 13.–The sailor whom we rescued gains strength fast. He was able to talk a little to-day. Briefly told, his story, as far as I got it, is that he was one of the crew of the Vulture, bound from England to India with army stores and arms, including a large consignment of powder. One day, he can’t say how many days ago, the ship caught fire in the hold. There were frantic and unavailing efforts made to get at the flames and extinguish them; and then the order was given to flood the hold, but before it could be executed there was a tremendous roar, and the sailor knew nothing else until he found himself in the water clinging to a fragment of the wreckage that strewed the sea. The ship had been blown up and had sunk at once. Not far from him floated one of the quarter-boats apparently uninjured. He managed to swim to it, and clamber in. There he was able to stand up and look around him. At first he could see no sign of life, but in another moment he heard a faint cry behind him, and, turning, saw a woman clinging to a broken spar. With a bit of broken board he paddled to her and got her into the boat. Like himself, she was unharmed, save by the awful shock and fright. He paddled around and around, but saw no further sign of life. Once a man’s body rose near the boat; rose slowly, turned, and sank again, and that was the last they saw of the twoscore men that but a little moment before had been full of life and vigor.