for help.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FLYING MERMAID DISABLED

"WE'LL save you!" shouted Mr. Henderson, who was on the deck, while
Mark was steering the craft. "Hold on a few minutes longer and we'll
be alongside!"

"They're real! They're real!" some of those aboard the burning ship
could be heard to shout. Evidently more than one of them had taken the
Mermaid for a delusion of their fear-crazed brain.

"They are real persons!" they called again and again. "They are coming
to save us!"

Mr. Henderson ran his ship as near the burning craft as he dared. Then
he called to the crew to leap into the water and swim to him. He, with
Washington, Jack, Bill and Tom, stood ready to haul aboard any who
were too weak to help themselves.

In a few minutes all of those left alive on the sailing vessel--
fourteen in all-- had come safely aboard the Mermaid. The ship was now
completely enveloped in flames.

"Are there any more left on her?" asked Mr. Henderson of one who
appeared to be a mate of the burning craft.

"Not a soul!" was the answer. "The captain and ten men perished in the