He was alone.

Every soul on board but himself had been swept from the deck by that
mighty mass of water.

For two days the storm tossed the ship about like a plaything. Her
lone voyager had no means of knowing whither he was being driven. He
ate at times mechanically and scarcely emerged on deck at all. The
fear of sharing the fate of his comrades possessed him and he remained
in the cabin, not knowing from one minute to the next whether the
succeeding instant would not prove his last. At last, however, the
storm blew itself out and Bluewater Bill ventured on deck.

What a sight met his gaze!

At first he thought he was dreaming.

All about him for miles--as far as he could see in fact--stretched a
gently-heaving, brown expanse. It looked like a vast prairie. From it
rose the sharp, pungent odor peculiar to seaweed and the old mariner
had no difficulty in recognizing the stunning fact that he was adrift
in the Sargasso Sea of which he had heard so many ominous tales.

The realization was a shocking one. It meant, as he knew, that he was
to all intents and purposes a doomed man. Despairingly he gazed about
him and almost uttered a shout as at a distance of not more than a
mile or two he made out the outlines of a queer-looking three-masted
ship. Here at least was company. Obtaining the glasses, which the
ill-fated skipper had left in his cabin, the mate of the Eleanor Jones