The boat put about. The returning alongside was as perilous an operation almost as the lowering the boat had been. All hands not required at the falls stood ready with ropes to heave to our shipmates should she be swamped alongside; but the oars being thrown in, Mr Gale and Peter seizing the fall-tackles at the right moment, hooked on, and the rest of the people handing themselves up by the ropes hanging ready for them, the boat was hoisted up before the sea again rose under her bottom. It was sad to think: that all their gallant efforts had been unavailing. In two or three minutes more not a human being of all the Spaniard's crew was to be seen alive; and except a few planks and spars, and here and there a bale or a chest, mere dots in the ocean, we might have fancied, as we looked out on those foaming waters, that all that had passed was some hideous dream. Often, indeed, have I since had the same dreadful drama acted over before my eyes while I slept; so deep was the impression made on me by the reality. Very many things which long after that time occurred have entirely faded from my memory. Had it been possible, (as Peter told me he thought it would have been, had all the crew done their duty), to keep the galleon afloat a few hours longer, in all probability we should have been the means of saving the people. In the course of the day the wind fell, and the sea went down sufficiently to have allowed our boats to have passed between the two vessels without any great risk. Captain Helfrich was certainly not a man to have deserted her while a chance remained of saving a human being. While she floated he would have stuck to her. "Remember, Jack," said Peter, "the first duty of a ship's company is to stick by each other--to keep sober, and to obey their officers. Without a head, men can do nothing. They are like a flock of sheep running here and there, and never getting on. What is a man's duty is best; and you see here, for instance, that the lives of all depend on their doing their duty."