"Man overboard!"

The startling cry rang through the ship. The captain turned round with a
face of agony.

"Man overboard!" shouted Cigole again. "Help! It's Brandon!"

"Brandon!" cried the captain. "He's lost! O God!"

He took up a hen-coop from its fastenings and flung it into the sea, and
a couple of pails after it.

He then looked aloft and to the south with eyes of despair. He could do
nothing. For now the storm was upon them, and the ship was plunging
furiously through the waters with the speed of a race-horse at the touch
of the gale. On the lee-side lay the sand-bank, now only three miles
away, whose unknown shallows made their present position perilous in the
extreme. The ship could not turn to try and save the lost passenger; it
was only by keeping straight on that there was any hope of avoiding that
lee-shore.

All on board shared the captain's despair, for all saw that nothing
could be done. The ship was at the mercy of the hurricane. To turn was
impossible. If they could save their own lives now it would be as much
as they could do.

Away went the ship--away, farther, and farther, every moment leaving at
a greater distance the lost man who struggled in the waters.