It was a hard pull back to the _Sagamore_,—against the wind all the way,—and while the mate steered the heavily-laden gig, the steward narrated the story of the catastrophe. The _Dundee_, commanded by Captain Murray, had sailed from Buenos Ayres without a cargo, taking aboard for ballast eight hundred tons of dirt scooped from the river bottom; and to this improper ballast the disaster was due. She labored heavily during the first day of the hurricane, and sprang a leak in several places. The incoming water soon converted the ballast into a liquid mass, which surged about in the hold, finally hurling her upon her side, and rendering her unmanageable. While in this position, great seas swept over her, smashing all the boats and loosening heavy spars, which washed about the decks, knocking down the crew. Two sailors and the carpenter received broken limbs in this manner, and before they could be rescued, all three were washed into the sea and drowned before the eyes of their shipmates. The mate was killed the following night by the falling main mast, and to complete the horror of the situation, the pumps became choked with mud, rendering them useless. With water pouring into every open seam, those aboard the settling bark had resigned all hope, and were passively waiting for death when the _Sagamore_ hove in sight. The ship’s side having been safely reached, the rescued men were quickly drawn up to the deck, and the boat again started for the _Dundee_. It was a desperate chance whether she remained above water until the gig could reach her; and each time the little craft was lifted upon a wave the mate looked anxiously towards the wreck, half expecting her to have vanished while his boat was in the trough. What kept the bark afloat during this interval was a mystery, but float she did, though suspended as it were by a single hair above the fathomless depths. When the gig brought up under her stern, the rope was again placed in position, and the apprentice told to descend. The youth was half way to the boat when he became panic-stricken at sight of a great sea coming on him, and cried for help. The wreck rolled heavily towards the boat, slackening the rope still further; the wave rolled over the apprentice, and when it passed, there was the rope all on the surface, but the hands that had grasped it a moment before were gone. The bark’s captain ran to the rail with a coil of rope ready to fling to the youth the instant he should appear, but he was not seen, and hope of his rescue had about gone, when Gene, with a sudden exclamation, reached over the boat’s side. He had the drowning man by the hair! After a struggle which nearly capsized the gig, the apprentice was dragged into it, more dead than alive. Then the two remaining seamen made the trip without accident, and the captain was ready—the last man to leave.