'What is to be done?' said Captain Parry, lifting himself erect from the chart. 'If they are in a boat they cannot be far distant. They have not long left the schooner, but every stroke of the oar carries them further away, and renders the search more hopeless.' 'The search?' exclaimed the commander, in a note of inquiry and surprise. 'I don't mean in this ship, of course,' said the officer, speaking with agitation and very quickly. 'A clipper schooner lies close at hand. If you will lend me a navigator and a few hands, we will sweep the sea, taking this mark,' he continued, putting his finger upon the chart, 'as our base, and hunting with masthead look-outs, and fierce fires burning by night, in circles whose circumference or diameter I should leave to the judgment of the mate in charge.' The commander began to slowly pace his cabin. Once he paused, and gazed with a face of earnest gravity at the sea that came brimming to the counter in a sheet of winding lines, the light swathes of the tropic calm, the oily gleam, the trouble of some stream of current twinkling in diamonds. Captain Parry eyed him with anxiety. He dreaded a discussion that might kill the hope that had suddenly been born in him. A tap on the door caused the commander to start. Mr. Mulready entered. 'The masthead men have been working hard with their glasses, sir, and report nothing in sight.' 'How is the schooner?' 'Forlorn, but safe, sir.' 'Take a boat and go aboard, and make a further thorough examination of her, and overhaul her stores--all as smartly as may be, sir. This gentleman has an idea, and I don't know but that it might prove practicable,' said the commander. And, as Mr. Mulready left the cabin, the captain of the ship turned to Parry, and asked him to follow him on deck. On the commander emerging, the third mate approached and touched his cap, and exclaimed: 'When I said there was no living thing aboard that schooner, sir, I should have reported a small coop full of cocks and hens, all alive, and very hungry and thirsty. I fed them with some rice I found in the galley, and poured a quantity of water into their trough.' He saluted, and marched off. 'In the face of Miss Vanderholt's last entry,' said the captain to Parry, 'we don't want live cocks and hens to tell us that that vessel has been recently abandoned.' She lay softly lifting upon the light swell, a beautiful, helpless fabric. The shudders which ran through her canvas were like the distress of something living. She had slewed somewhat, bringing her jibbooms to bear upon the ship. In the blind, hopeless way of abandoned craft, she was posture-making for help. The excitement aboard the _Alfred_ was very great indeed. The mastheading of the men, the pictures of their little bodies high in the heavens, sweeping the deep with binocular and telescope, had immensely stimulated the passions of curiosity and wonder.