"No--no," came back, just as the schooner, in her onward course,
swept beyond the reach of the voice. Her people collected together,
and one or two ran up the rigging a short distance, stretching their
necks, on the look-out for the "poor fellow," but they were soon
called down to "'bout ship." In less than five minutes, another
vessel, a rakish coasting sloop, came within hail.

"Did n't that brig strike the Pot Rock, in passing the Gate?"
demanded her captain.

"Ay, ay!--and a devil of a rap she got, too."

This satisfied him; there being nothing remarkable in a vessel's
acting strangely that had hit the Pot Rock in passing Hell Gate.

"I think we may get in our mainsail on the strength of this, Mr.
Mulford," said Spike. "There can be nothing oncommon in a craft's
shortening sail, that has a man overboard, and which has hit the Pot
Rock. I wonder I never thought of all this before."

`Here is a skiff trying to get alongside of us, Capt. Spike," called
out the boatswain.

"Skiff be d--d! I want no skiff here."

"The man that called himself Jack Tier is in her, sir."

"The d--l he is!" cried Spike, springing over to the opposite side
of the deck to take a look for himself. To his infinite satisfaction
he perceived that Tier was alone in the skiff, with the exception of