"Ay, ay," answered several voices. "We will cling to the mast as long as our fingers can gripe hold of it." "Hold on, Oliver, hold on!" I said. "Don't you feel as if the mast was going?" Scarcely had I uttered the words when another sea came rolling up. It struck the shattered wreck like a huge hammer. In an instant it seemed as if all her timbers had parted. A cry rose from many of the sturdy men on the top. Over bent the mast. Now it swayed on one side, now on the other, and then with a crash down it sunk into the boiling ocean. I thought that I had been holding on securely, but at that instant a sea swept by, catching the end to which I clung. I felt myself torn from my grasp, and was carried far away off amid the seething waters. CHAPTER TEN. A DESERT ISLAND IS REACHED. As I was washed away from the mainmast a cry from Oliver reached my ears. I knew by this that he too had been carried off by the sea. I sprang towards him. "I will save him or perish!" I thought, "as I did once before." He had not been idle since his first accident, and had done his best to become a swimmer. He kept up boldly. I urged him to try and recover the mast, but when we looked round we could discover it on neither side. Now I felt myself carried to the summit of a sea, to be hurled over again on the other side. I had little hope of escape, but still I resolved to struggle to the last. Oliver swam bravely by my side, but I knew from the exertions he was making that he could not long continue them.