‘The ship is sinking rapidly. I, Gurth Egerton, believing that I am about to die, do solemnly declare that on the night of the 15th of September, 18—, I stabbed my cousin, Ralph Egerton, in a gambling-house, kept by a man named Heckett, and that the wound proved fatal. I freely make this confession, and may God forgive me. ‘Signed, Gurth Egerton.’ The clergyman took the book from him and read it. Then he wrote something beneath it. The confession once made, a swift revulsion of feeling came over Gurth Egerton. He reached out his hand, as though he would have snatched it back. The clergyman closed the book and thrust it into his pocket. ‘Unhappy sinner!’ he said; ‘even now you repent the acknowledgment of your awful crime. Pray, for your time is short. Remember, should God spare me, I will use every effort to bring you to justice.’ As the last words left his lips, and Gurth Egerton, with a white face, was about to turn away, a loud cry rang out from the look-out man. ‘A sail! A sail!’ The doomed men rushed to the side of the vessel and strained their eyes. In that wild moment of sudden hope all was forgotten. Gurth Egerton flew to the vessel’s side. Yes. Far away in the distance, but still visible, were the white sails of a ship. Hope sprang up with renewed vigour in every breast. Strong men laughed and cried and hugged each other. A strange delirium animated them. One or two of the sailors awoke from their drunken sleep, and came staggering on deck. The excitement was at its height, each man shouting above his neighbour what was to be done to attract the passing ship’s attention, when suddenly the vessel heeled over, there was a gurgling sound, the roar and rush of a huge volume of water pouring in, and then down like a stone, to the depths of the ocean, went the _Bon Espoir._ The waves danced and glittered in the sunlight. Over the spot where the ship and her living freight had sunk the blue waves closed, and there was nothing to tell of their vanished prey. A bottle bobbed about, carried now here now there by the playful waves. As the _Bon Espoir_ sank, the clergyman’s hand had hurled it far out to sea. It contained a leaf torn from his pocket-book. The ship _Diana_, bound for Baltimore, sailed late that afternoon over the spot where the _Bon Espoir_ had sunk. A sailor who was in the rigging cried out that he could see something that looked like a barrel floating in the sea some distance away. A boat was manned and put off. In half an hour it returned with a strange story. To the barrel they had seen in the water clung a man in the last stage of exhaustion. They had released him, and brought him with them. Tenderly the sailors lifted a half-drowned body from the stern of the boat, and it was hoisted on board. The surgeon of the _Diana_ took it in charge, and pronounced it to be still alive. Presently the half-drowned man opened his eyes. ‘What ship?’ asked the captain, when he had recovered sufficiently to speak.