The next day, there was not a doubt about what our duty was; and getting the raft round to the lee quarter, we lowered Miss Bell down, and then made ready to join her; when, more from use than anything, I ran up the rigging to take a sweep round, when--I could hardly believe my eyes-- there was a brig bearing down under easy canvas, and not three miles off! We were so busy, or we must have seen her before. Howsoever, my first act now was to hoist a signal; and then, there being no time to lose, I got aboard the raft, being last man to leave the vessel; and we hoisted a bit of sail, and made towards the brig. We had not left the Mew a minute too soon, for just as we had got about two hundred yards away, a squall took her, and she bent right over, righted, careened again, and then settled rapidly down, and was gone. We were all so taken up with the sight, that, for a moment, we forgot the brig, and when we turned to her again, she was bearing away. I thought that she had seen our ship, when we hoisted the signal; but, from her acts, this could not have been the case, and now every second she was increasing her distance. We shouted, we yelled, and hoisted a handkercher, on the end of a boat-hook; but she did not see us; and gradually we saw sail after sail dip down out of sight, and we were once more all alone on the great ocean. If we had seen no ship, I should not have cared; but this seemed such tantalising, despairing work, and but for Miss Bell, I should have been about ready to give up. That night I was sitting steering our lubberly craft, when Miss Bell came and sat beside me, and, after being silent for some time, she points out seaward, and asks me if what she saw was a star. I looked at it for a few minutes, for I hardly dared to answer at first; but I felt sure directly after, as I told her it was, and a bright one for us, being a ship's lantern. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STORY TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. Soon after sunrise next morning, we were laughing, crying, and acting as bad as that there fat passenger, for we were aboard a large ship, whose light had shone out like a star of hope for us; and when they picked us up, I found that the vessel was bound for Sydney. But our pleasure did not last long, for what with the exposure and excitement, Miss Bell broke down, and next day she was so far from being in safety that she was in a raging fever. Perhaps I may be right, perhaps wrong; but measuring things as I saw them, it has always struck me that, true-hearted man as he was, Mr Ward would never have won his wife after all, if it had not been for that fever; but it must have been a fine thing for him, being the only doctor within reach, to have to tend on her, and most likely save her life.