The _Alert’s_ bow then rose in the air till I could see many feet of her keel clear of the water. She hung in that position for a minute or two as if she hesitated to sink. It flashed across my mind that as there was no water in the forehold, perhaps she was going to keep afloat after all. The hope raised by the thought, however, soon left me as the ship gave a sort of plunge and then gradually disappeared. Fire and steam burst up through the funnel just before the waters closed over it! [Illustration: Sea creature] [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER VI. AMONG THE BILLOWS. On the ocean’s troubled breast Toss’d incessant without rest, Now on raft and now on wave, Death and trouble round me rave. Owing to the manner in which the ship went down she created little or no suction. A slight swirl and wreckage—principally pieces of the awning, a few gratings and life-buoys—were all that denoted where our vessel had been. She sank about 4.30 p. m., and just then the thick weather cleared off a little so that when I rose on top of a wave I could see a considerable distance off. The shore was plainly visible and I judged we were about three miles S.W. of Cape Schanck. I saw that the whole fifteen of my companions had managed to get hold of some wreckage. The Captain, chief mate and two firemen were all grouped together on some pieces of weather-board, and the others were scattered in twos and threes, each on top of something. My first fear was that the sharks would get hold of me, then it struck me that the water was too rough for them to attack any one. I could only see some single pieces of board near me, so I was puzzled for a bit as to how to steer for something larger. All of a sudden I saw a lot rise on the top of a big wave right ahead of me. I soon reached it and thought I was quite as well off as the rest of my mates. My raft consisted of eleven or twelve pieces of weather-board all nailed together on a crosspiece. I got on top, and then every single piece of plank that came near me I pulled on board, till I succeeded in piling them up high enough to keep me out of the water. The sixteen of us were at this time all floating nearly in a line. Two sailors and the steward were about thirty yards seaward of me, the captain, chief mate, and two firemen about 50 yards off landward, and the rest a little distance further inward still. A large number of Mullihawks collected and kept hovering above our heads. I had no sooner got my raft put together, to the best advantage, when a heavy sea came, and turned all clean over on top of me. The nails in the planks caught my clothes and pierced my skin so that I had great difficulty in clearing myself from underneath. When I succeeded in getting on top again I saw that all my mates to windward of me had also been washed off their wreckage, and a similar fate shortly after befel those to leeward. It almost seemed as if the same wave had capsized the lot of us one after the other.