I secured the slings to the cot, and, until we lowered him to the deck, he held his face hidden in his hands. I rove two lengths of line through the iron eyes at which the cot slung, in the manner I had described to Helga, and when the weight of the cot was on these lines, we belayed one end, holding by the other. I then passed my knife through the clews, as it would be called, or thin lines which supported the cot, and, going to the rope I had belayed, bade Helga lower her end as I lowered mine, and the cot descended safely to the deck. The girl then came round to the head of the cot, and together we dragged it out of the house on to the deck. Saving a little wrench when we hauled the cot over the coaming of the deck-house door, the poor man was put to no pain. It was merciful indeed that he should have lain ill in the deck-house, for had he occupied a cabin below I cannot imagine how we should have got him out on to the deck without killing him with the anguish which we should have been forced by our efforts to cause him. When we had got him to the gangway I sprang on to the raft and caught hold of the block that dangled at the extremity of the yardarm tackle. With this I returned to the barque, and, just as we had got the raft over, so did we sway the poor Captain on to her. I got on to the raft to receive him as Helga lowered the cot. He descended gently, and on my crying, 'Let go!' she swiftly released the line, and the tackle overhauled itself to the roll of the vessel. I remember exclaiming 'Thank God!' when this job was ended, and I had unhooked the block, as though the worst was over; and indeed, in the mere business of abandoning the barque, the worst had ended with the bestowal of the sick and helpless Captain on the raft. But what was now to begin? My 'Thank God!' seemed to sound like a piece of irony in my heart when I looked from the deep, wet, gleaming side of the leaning hull, waving her wrecked spars in the reddening light of the sun--when I looked from her, I say, to seawards, where the flowing lines of the lifting and falling swell were running bald and foamless into the south-west sky. Helga came to the gangway and called to know if all were well with her father. 'All is well,' I answered. 'Come now, Helga! There is nothing to detain us. We shall be wise to cast adrift from the barque. She is very much down by the head, and the next dip may be her last.' 'A few minutes cannot signify,' she cried. 'There are one or two things I should like to bring with me. I wish to possess them, if we are preserved.' 'Make haste, then!' I called. She disappeared, and I turned to the Captain. He looked up at me out of his cot with eyes in which all the feverish fire of the morning was quenched. 'Is Helga remaining in the barque?' he asked listlessly. 'God forbid!' cried I. 'She will be with us in a minute or two.' 'It is a cruel desertion,' said he. 'Poor _Anine_! You were to have been kept afloat!'