June found the _Polly_ approaching the Canary Islands. The distance of her journey had been about two thousand miles, which would make the average rate of drift something more than three hundred miles a month, or ten miles per day. The season of spring and its apple blossoms had come and gone in New England, and the brig had long since been mourned as missing with all hands. It was on the twentieth of June that the skipper and his companion--two hairy, ragged apparitions--saw three ships which appeared to be heading in their direction. This was in latitude 28° North and longitude 13° West, and if you will look at a chart you will note that the wreck would soon have stranded on the coast of Africa. The three ships, in company, bore straight down at the pitiful little brig, which trailed fathoms of sea-growth along her hull. She must have seemed uncanny to those who beheld her and wondered at the living figures that moved upon the weather-scarred deck. She might have inspired “The Ancient Mariner.” Not one ship, but three, came bowling down to hail the derelict. They manned the braces and swung the main-yards aback, beautiful, tall ships and smartly handled, and presently they lay hove to. The captain of the nearest one shouted a hail through his brass trumpet, but the skipper of the _Polly_ had no voice to answer back. He sat weeping upon the coaming of a hatch. Although not given to emotion, he would have told you that it had been a hard voyage. A boat was dropped from the davits of this nearest ship, which flew the red ensign from her spanker-gaff. A few minutes later Captain Cazneau and Samuel Badger, able seaman, were alongside the good ship _Fame_ of Hull, Captain Featherstone, and lusty arms pulled them up the ladder. It was six months to a day since the _Polly_ had been thrown on her beam-ends and dismasted. The three ships had been near together in light winds for several days, it seemed, and it occurred to their captains to dine together on board the _Fame_. And so the three skippers were there to give the survivors of the _Polly_ a welcome and to marvel at the yarn they spun. The _Fame_ was homeward bound from Rio Janeiro. It is pleasant to learn that Captain Cazneau and Samuel Badger “were received by these humane Englishmen with expressions of the most exalted sensibility.” The musty old narrative concludes: Thus was ended the most shocking catastrophe which our seafaring history has recorded for many years, after a series of distresses from December 20 to the 20th of June, a period of one hundred and ninety-two days. Every attention was paid to the sufferers that generosity warmed with pity and fellow-feeling could dictate, on board the _Fame_. They were transferred from this ship to the brig _Dromio_ and arrived in the United States in safety.