"Help him down below," said Mark, and two of the men lifted the poor fellow to his feet and then helped him down to the place prepared for the crew close to the skipper's cabin. "He'll come round again, sir," said Tom from the wheel. "Spoke or two loose in his steering gear, that's all. Lucky I got to him in time, or we should have been ashore hard and fast." "Was that on a sandbank we struck?" said Mark. "Yes, sir, twice over; and if the masts had gone it would have been all over with us. But plenty of sail on and a nice breeze helped us to scrape off, though my heart was in my mouth all the time." "The schooner must be wonderfully well-built, Tom." "Well-built and ill built, sir. First as to timbers, second as to use, sir. Why, some of our merchant craft would have been shook to pieces like one o' them card houses as we used to build when we was little ones." That morning, as they were sailing on over the calm waters, rising and falling slowly to the gentle Atlantic swell, it seemed hard to believe that they had been so near wreck only a few hours before. But Mark had only to turn his eyes eastward to where the great billows broke upon the shore, making a chaos of foaming, tumbling waters, to be convinced of the danger they had escaped. The blacks soon forgot the scare, and lay basking about on deck perfectly happy, and ready to smile at the crew; and, saving a few cuts and bruises, which did not show, apparently very little the worse for their encounters. The swellings, too, on board the prize crew, to use Tom Fillot's way of expressing it, had diminished rapidly. A little too rapidly, Tom said. "You see if we've got no marks to show the officers and men, they won't believe we've been in so much trouble, sir. My heye! wouldn't the skipper have given it to you, Mr Vandean, if you'd took us back without this craft." Mark had plenty of anxieties to cope with. So long as the weather kept fine, he had no great difficulty about the navigation. There was the low-lying shore, two or three miles on their starboard bow, and as far as was possible this distance was kept to. Provision on board was ample; the water-casks had been well filled, and even if the store of this prime necessity had failed there would have been no great difficulty in running up one or other of the rivers for a fresh supply. As to the blacks, the hours glided on, and there was very little to disturb Mark's confidence. The two sailors--Soup and Taters--paraded the deck forward with a great show of authority, to which their unclothed fellow-countrymen submitted with a very excellent grace; and it was evident that there was nothing to fear from them. "They're rum sort of beggars, sir," Tom said. "Why, Tom?" "Well, sir, I ain't good at explaining what I mean, but it seems to me like this:--Give them enough to eat and drink, and plenty of sunshine to lie about in, that's about all they want." "Yes, Tom, they're soon satisfied."