"You're a nice fellow!" cried the doctor to Mr Jellaby on our approaching near enough to hear what he said. "It won't be your fault if we're not all drowned here like rats in a hole and never reach the ship. As for the cutter, I believe she's swamped already!" He was in a fine rage, certainly; but, the lieutenant, whose good temper was proof against any amount of irritability, soon calmed him down. "I beg your pardon, doctor," he said, as he hailed the bowman of the cutter, which was not swamped as yet, although making very bad weather of it, telling him to haul up alongside under the lee of the wreck. "I really beg your pardon, doctor, but I could not be any quicker; for the captain ordered me to examine the vessel and see if I could find her papers." He thereupon described to Doctor Nettleby what the three of us had seen in the cabin; when that gentleman was as much shocked as we were. "Can I do anything, Jellaby?" he asked. "Are you sure they were all lifeless?" "As dead as herrings, doctor." "Then there would be no use in my going down to see the poor creatures?" "My dear sir, you couldn't do them an ounce of good, for they're long past the reach of all human aid!" replied the lieutenant, while he gave a helping hand to Corporal Macan to lift up the still unconscious Spaniard whom we had rescued, the sole survivor, so far as we knew, of all those who had perhaps started gaily enough on their disastrous voyage in the now dismantled and water-logged barque. "Besides, my dear doctor, we haven't got the time. If we don't clear out of this pretty sharp, we'll all go below, I'm afraid! Steady there, Bates, with that grapnel rope! You'll have the boat coming broadside on against the wreck, if you don't take care and she'll be stove in. Be smart now and rig-out that clewline there to the brace-block at the end of the yardarm. It will serve to lower down this poor beggar into the boat, which you must all fend off. Let her just come under the spar handsomely, without touching the side." These directions being carefully adhered to, we contrived, by using great caution, though not without considerable risk, to lower down the almost lifeless man into the cutter; after which we descended ourselves, Mr Jellaby being the last to leave the hapless hulk, letting go the grapnel as he dropped into the sternsheets. The doctor and I caught him as he joined us, everyone else having enough to do to keep the boat steady with the oars; while Bates, of course, was busy with the tiller, which he kept amidships. As the boat drifted past the low rail of the vessel, now almost level with the water, which partly sheltered us from the full force of the wind and waves, I had the opportunity, when we glided under the stern, to read her name emblazoned thereon in large gilt letters. It was _La Bella Catarina_.