A SWIM FOR LIFE.

"Here is an account, Grandfather," said Ralph, "of a sailor who kept himself afloat at sea for ten hours with only an oar to cling to. Do you think such a thing possible?"

"Not only possible, my boy, but very probable," answered the old captain. "I once knew a sailor who swam for two hours in a heavy sea when he had not as much as a wooden toothpick to buoy him up, and if you want the yarn here it is.

"We were on our way from Cape Town to Boston, and when we reached the parallel of Bermuda we lost a man overboard in the following way: Just as evening fell, the wind that had been light all day freshened with a long-drawn-out moaning sound through the rigging, and the captain sang out to settle away royals and top-gallant sails, and to haul down the flying-jib. As it was raining heavily we all kept our oil-skins on when we went aloft. Upon reaching the cross-trees I laid out on the top-gallant yard, while a seaman named Porter kept on past me, going up to furl the royal. I had passed the gaskets around the sail and was about to lay down from aloft, when something large and dark flashed by me, fetched up against the top-mast rigging, then bounded clear of the vessel, and fell into the sea. Porter had missed his footing, and was now plunging down into the ocean's depths as the ship tore rapidly onward.

"'Man overboard!' I yelled; and, seizing a backstay, I slid down on deck, repeating my warning in the descent.

"There is no cry that will nerve a seaman to greater exertion than the one that tells him a shipmate is in dire peril, and although each one worked fiercely and with the natural strength of two men, the vessel had swept fully a mile ahead before we could lay the main-yard aback and so heave the ship to. Nimble hands cast one of the lee boats adrift from her gripes, and the mate, followed by five seamen, tumbled into her, and were lowered to the water alongside.

"'I will burn a flare,' called the captain, 'so that you may keep the ship in sight!'

"Four of the sailors pulled at the long oars with powerful, sweeping strokes, while the second mate guided the little vessel back into the blackness of the night, and I stood in the bows peering ahead and sending a ringing shout of encouragement across the waters every minute or two. But not one of us expected to see poor Porter again; for although he was known as a strong swimmer, how long, we reasoned, could he keep afloat in that breaking sea, weighted down with his clothes—a suit of oil-skins, and heavy sea-boots? However, we worked as zealously as though the sight of a shipmate's struggling, drowning, beseeching face were before us. The ship had been running free when Porter fell from the yard, so to fetch the place where he had first sunk we had only to pull dead against wind and sea. The men labored at the oars until their breath was drawn in choking gasps, and the heavy oak blades were almost swept from cramped and weakened arms.

"'Cease rowing, and listen!' called the mate.

"The ceaseless washing of the waves was the only sound that reached us. The ship had continued to drift from us under the influence of the wind upon her hull and rigging, and although we could still make out the flare that was burned over her quarter, it had grown so faint with distance that it now showed only as a blot of fire far away to leeward. Then we 'darned the water,' as it is called, pulling this way and that, while all the time I sent powerful cries into the teeth of the gale. At last we gave up the search, and turned the boat's head around for the ship. Not a word was spoken, each one of us silently busy with his own gloomy thoughts, picturing a lost companion sinking down and down through the unfathomable depths of the sea, to find at last a resting-place upon the white sand and coral of the ocean's bed. Only the thump, thump of oars against rowlocks; only the incessant seething of the curling crests; only the hissing of the rain as it smote the water about us, and oars rose and fell mechanically as the boat went staggering down to where the glowworm light showed the ship to be.

"Suddenly a faint, long-away cry trembled out of the darkness.

"''Vast rowing!' shouted the mate, as he jumped excitedly to his feet. Then he put his hands to his mouth and sent an ear-splitting shout rolling across the sea. A moment later the answer came to our strained, eager ears—another cry, but fuller than the first one, as though there was heart in it.

"'Give way, my lads! bend your backs, my boys,' thundered the mate, sweeping the boat around with such a fierce pull at the yoke-lines that she laid down until the top of a comber spilled over the gunwale. Then, under the frenzied exertions of the men, we went smoking through the water at right angles to the course we had been making.

"'I see him!' I shouted. 'Cease rowing! Stern all!' And the next moment, laughing and crying, we dragged our shipmate over the rail. We pulled him into the boat, but that was all. He was as naked as on the day he came into the world. After coming to the surface from his plunge he realized that the weight of his clothes would soon drag him down; so amid the blackness, and in that jumping, tumbling sea, that broke and boiled about his head, he kicked off his boots, and one by one got rid of his garments, catching a long breath and allowing himself to sink while he pulled and tore his clinging clothes away from him. He told us that all hope of rescue by his shipmates had been given up, and that he was trying to keep himself afloat until daylight, in hopes that some vessel would pass within hail of him, when he heard the sound of oars, and gave out the cry that the mate had first heard."