"Why, Donovan, they were both, I mean the ladies, as _unlike_ Miss Cathleen, the affianced wife of a certain lieutenant of the navy, the son of widow Donovan, who lives at 1060, Sackville Street, as you can well imagine."-- Dennis laughed.--"Why, you have me there, Benjie. sure enough, so"---- Here Lennox interrupted him, as he hastily entered the small cabin. "The ship has made a signal of distress, sir." "The devil she has!" We both jumped up the ladder as quick as we could. The frigate was steering large, about a mile on our lee-bow. All was right and snug with her; but the ship, that lay about half a mile abeam of us to windward, had her ensign flying at the mizen-peak, with the union down; and the signal for a boat flying at the head of the foretopmast. To send her assistance before the sea went down was utterly impossible; no boat could have lived for a minute; so that all we could do was to haul by the wind, and close under her lee quarter. It was still blowing so fresh, that when the master hailed I could not hear him; but as she lay over, we could see that both pumps were manned, and the gush of _clear_ water from the scuppers was a sad indication of what had befallen. I could distinguish the two young missionaries, in their trowsers and shirts, labouring most vigorously amongst the crew; while the patriarchal old man was holding on by the mizen-rigging, close to the master; evidently keeping his footing on the deck of the tumbling vessel with great difficulty. Seeing me on deck, he took off his hat, which was instantly blown overboard, and his long grey hairs streamed straight out in the wind. This to me was a moving incident, simple as it may appear to others, and it seemed to affect Donovan also. "What a very fine-looking old man he is indeed!" said Dennis. The lady passengers were both below, at least I could see nothing of them. When we closed, the captain hauled down the ensign, and as the flow of water from the pumps seemed to decrease, I began to hope that they were gaining on the leak. Lanyard now steered as near as he could without danger, and hailed, that the moment it was possible he would send assistance to them. The captain heard him, and made his acknowledgment with his trumpet. We kept as close to her as was safe the whole forenoon; and although we saw that the crew were every now and then taking a spell at the pumps, yet they seemed quite able to keep the leak under; and every thing once more appeared to be going on orderly on board. "Come," said I, to old Shavings the carpenter, who was looking out at her alongside of me, "if the weather would only moderate a bit, a small touch of your quality, Master Shavings, and a forenoon's spell of your crew, would set them all to rights again--eh?" The warrant officer turned his quid, and thereby poisoned a dolphin or two, I make no doubt; by the jet of tobacco juice that he squirted overboard. He then took a long squint before he spoke.