The plight of the vessel was mournful enough. She had evidently been built for a three-masted schooner, but, as Bill had observed when he first obtained a view of her, everything about her was well-nigh gone save her hull. Her bulwarks had been thoroughly crushed, and so the sea had successively torn away her boats, shivered her galley and wheelhouse, and filled her cabin and hold. Her masts were also destroyed, the fore and mizzen masts being carried away from their steppings, and the main-mast broken completely in twain just above the cross-trees. But a sight still more desolate, as well as harrowing, yet awaited us, as, in overhauling the sail-encumbered shrouds of the partially standing mast, we discovered several ice-bound figures rigidly hanging therein, which, being cut away and lowered to our boat, proved to be the body of a negro perfectly stark and dead, and three most pitiable white sailors, whose life was so far extinguished that they could neither move hand nor foot, nor utter more than the feeblest moans. When we had covered the face of the dead and sheltered the well-nigh dead as best we could in the bottom of our boat, of course our chief thought was to return to the shore as swiftly as possible. But on this head there was no call to entertain the smallest solicitude; for after old Bill, from a motive that we could not yet name, had 'stepped' a mast through one of the foremost thwarts of the boat, and rigged a sail all ready to be spread, we cast off from the wreck, and presently, dropping into the full strength of the wind, were swept onward like an arrow, with scarce the least use of any other oar than that in the hands of our stalwart steersman. Speedily crossing the outer waters, we leaped and bounded over the breakers; and when old Bill, as we were rushing along the inlet, gave orders for the hoisting of the sail, we not only hastened to obey him, but immediately saw an all-important reason for the command. For we were now about entering the ice of the sounds; and as the boat flew in its midst, her stiff, tight sail drove her through the stubborn obstruction as easily and in much the same manner as the steam plow rips up the matted bosom of the prairies. In due season we reached the landing where we usually disembarked from the sounds, and where we found a wagon awaiting us, to which we bore our sad freightage, and led the way for old Bill's house. On arriving, we laid the corpse in an outbuilding and carried the sailors into a bedroom. But what was to be next done? To tell the truth, most of us knew no more than so many children. But here our leader again showed his knowledge. Strongly condemning the lighting of a fire in the apartment,--which some one was about to do,--he set us busily at work bringing him a good supply of tubs, and buckets of cold water, into which he dipped the naked persons of the sufferers; and as this treatment, combined with a patient, gentle