For nearly an hour longer the light glowed steadily, then it expanded into a sudden wonderful brightness, and the next instant had disappeared entirely. Three hours later, just as the sun was rising in all its sea-born glory, the _Sea Robin_ sailed slowly through a mass of charred timbers and other floating remains of what evidently had been a large vessel. There were no boats to be seen, nor was anything discovered by which her name or character could be identified. For some time the schooner cruised back and forth through the wreckage in a fruitless search for survivors of the catastrophe. As they were about to give it up, and Captain McCloud had begun to issue the order to head her away again on her course towards home, he all at once held up his hand to command silence, and listened. It was certainly the cry of an infant that came clear and loud across the water. The crew looked at each other in amazement, not unmixed with fear. There was no boat to be seen, no sign of life; and yet there it came again, louder and more distinct than before; the vigorous cry of a healthy baby who has just waked up and is hungry. The wind had died out entirely, the water was oily in its unruffled smoothness, and only the long swell remained. Once more the cry was heard, and now it seemed so close at hand that several of the men trembled and turned pale. There was still nothing to be seen, save on the crest of the swell above them an apparently empty cask maintaining an upright position in the water, and showing a third of its length above it. “That’s the life-boat!” shouted Captain McCloud. “There’s where the music comes from, men. Oh for the use of a dory for just five minutes!” Having no boat, they could only watch the cask as it came slowly nearer and nearer, and several of the men prepared to jump overboard and swim for it in case it should drift past them. At last, when it was about thirty feet away, the skipper, making a skilful cast, settled the bight of a light line over the strange craft. Then he carefully drew it towards the schooner, over the low rail of which a couple of the crew were hanging, waiting with out-stretched arms to grasp it. A minute later the cask stood on the schooner’s deck, and Captain McCloud was lifting tenderly from it a sturdy, well-grown baby boy, apparently about two years old. The little fellow smiled in the weather-beaten face, and stretched out his arms eagerly as the rough fisherman bent down towards him. At the same instant there came a fluttering of sails overhead, with a rattling of blocks, and one of the crew sang out as he sprang to the wheel, “Here’s a breeze! and it’s fair for home!” “The baby’s brought it!” shouted another. “Hurrah for the baby!”