For there, just before them, and just before the entranced gaze of Captain Corbet, lay the Antelope. She was lying on her side, down the steep slope of mud, as though with the falling tide she had rolled over to her ruin and destruction. There she lay, with her side buried deep in the soft mud, her masts pointing downwards; buried there, and so firmly fixed in that burial-place, that the next rising tide would only seem to complete her hopeless ruin. There she lay, doomed and devoted to destruction,--the dear old Antelope, which had carried them safely through all their late adventures, and around which so many imperishable memories had fastened themselves. To these boys of the “B. O. W. C.,” who thus saw it in the peril of its last agonies, the Antelope was not a common schooner. It had carried them safely through adventures which were never to be forgotten. In it they had cruised over Minas Basin, they had visited the Five Islands, they had landed at Pratt’s Cove: in it they had drifted over the wide seas, they had run ashore, they had encountered perils without number; in it they had known joy and sorrow, plenty and famine, hope and despair; and this was the end--to see the dear old tub upset on the wrong side, and lying buried in Mud Creek before their eyes, awaiting its inevitable fate. “O, Captain Corbet!” cried Bart, who hurried up first to the figure on the stone wall. “O, Captain Corbet! Can nothing be done to save her?” Captain Corbet turned his face, and looked mildly, yet calmly upon the boys. His calmness extended itself to them, and they thought that it was the calmness of hope. In a moment their sorrow over the Antelope passed away. But the words of Captain Corbet did not tend to inspire hope. No shook his venerable head with deep solemnity. “No,” said he, “nothen ken be done. You see, I hurried home to see the babby, an I didn’t fasten her right. She stood one tide all night, but it was on’y by chance. This here tide to-day has done for her. I’d orter hev tied her up proper--but it was all the babby. I clar’d out, tied her loose, an this here’s the result. Good by, old Antelope!--_Hic jacet._ There’s Lating for ye, boys,” he added, mournfully. “You’re studyin that at the Academy, an kin onderstand the feelins of the onhappy Corbit.” “Don’t talk so, captain,” cried Bart. “We’ll help you. We got out all the ballast to-day. Come; can’t you think of some way to save her? Isn’t there any way? We’ll help you if you want help. We’ll wait here till the next tide, and get her righted.” “No go--” said Captain Corbet. “You give up too quick,” cried Bart, more earnestly than before. “Can’t something be done? We’ll help you, you know.” Captain Corbet shook his head solemnly; then looking earnestly at the boys, he slowly ejaculated,-- “No go, boys; that there schooner’s a gone sucker!”