And while taking counsel with his own soul, he saw before him the coast extending invitingly. There was a long line of sand, or of mud,--which was just as good,--into which he longed to run the vessel. Which would be best--to run the vessel ashore, or to make the desperate attempt to turn her again, and set her kicking and plunging? He preferred the former. Yes, to run her ashore would solve the whole difficulty. He might be disgraced by it, but he could not help it. He felt that he was doomed to disgrace, in any event; and it would be better to incur disgrace on a mud bank, and in safety, than when tossing and drifting he didn’t know where. His mind, then, was made up; and he kept the schooner’s head straight towards the shore. But as he approached it, he was aware of one very startling fact, and that was, that the schooner, while going forward, was also drifting rapidly to leeward. In the course of that sidelong motion, she was losing way so rapidly, that, instead of striking the mud flats, she might run upon a very different kind of place; for there, on the lee bow, was a headland of dark, stern rock, at the base of which the waves were breaking into foam. In his fixed attention to the mud flats, he had’ not noticed this till just now, when it was full before him, and not very far away. Below this headland the mud flats appeared again. What could he do? All seemed lost; for the headland, and the foaming waves, and the frowning, jagged rocks were full before him. With a bitter feeling of despair, and a pang of anguish for the coming fate of the friends who had given him their trust, and who even now were singing and shouting in their uproarious glee, he stood for a moment paralyzed, looking with white lips at his fate. Suddenly, and just as all seemed lost, he jerked the helm a-port. The schooner swung half round. The wind took her astern, and drove her forward. Her sails flapped and banged about. Then a current seemed to seize her and carry her on for a score of yards. Suddenly there was a thump, a grinding noise, and another thump dull and heavy. In an instant all was confusion. “The rocks! the rocks!” cried all. “She’s struck!” Then the schooner was once more swept on, and a wave, striking her stern, dashed the tiller out of Bart’s hands, and he fell. Springing up, he seized it again, not knowing how he moved it, or when. At that moment the sails filled again, the schooner bounded forward, and in a few minutes it was beyond the headland, and moving on toward the lower mud flat; and before they knew that they were saved, she drove hard and fast into the mud, with a shock that knocked them all down.. Picking themselves up, they looked around at the shore in bewilderment. Then they looked at Bart. “What’s all this?” they asked. “O, nothing,”’ said Bart. “I found we couldn’t do anything, and so I ran her ashore.”