on the part of the captain to save himself.  He was then gone, and there were no hopes for him.  Philip thought of Hillebrant, and hastened down below; he found him still in his bed-place, lying against the side.  He lifted him out, and with difficulty climbed with him on deck, and laid him in the long-boat on the booms, as the best chance of saving his life.  To this boat, the only one which could be made available, the crew had also repaired; but they repulsed Philip, who would have got into her; and, as the sea made clean breakers over them, they cast loose the lashings which confined her.  With the assistance of another heavy sea which lifted her from the chocks, she was borne clear of the booms and dashed over the gunnel into the water, to leeward, which was comparatively smooth—­not, however, without being filled nearly up to the thwarts.  But this was little cared for by the intoxicated seamen, who, as soon as they were afloat, again raised their shouts and songs of revelry as they were borne away by the wind and sea towards the beach.  Philip, who held on by the stump of the mainmast, watched them with an anxious eye, now perceiving them borne aloft on the foaming surf, now disappearing in the trough.  More and more distant were the sounds of their mad voices, till, at last, he could hear them no more,—­he beheld the boat balanced on an enormous rolling sea, and then he saw it not again.

Philip knew that now his only chance was to remain with the vessel, and attempt to save himself upon some fragment of the wreck.  That the ship would long hold together he felt was impossible; already she had parted her upper decks, and each shock of the waves divided her more and more.  At last, as he clung to the mast, he heard a noise abaft, and he then recollected that Mynheer Von Stroom was still in his cabin.  Philip crawled aft, and found that the poop-ladder had been thrown against the cabin door, so as to prevent its being opened.  He removed it and entered the cabin, where he found Mynheer Von Stroom clinging to windward with the grasp of death,—­but it was not death, but the paralysis of fear.  He spoke to him, but could obtain no reply; he attempted to move him, but it was impossible to make him let go the part of the bulk-head that he grasped.  A loud noise and the rush of a mass of water told Philip that the vessel had parted amidships, and he unwillingly abandoned the poor supercargo to his fate, and went out of the cabin door.  At the after-hatchway he observed something struggling,—­it was Johannes the bear, who was swimming, but still fastened by a cord which prevented his escape.  Philip took out his knife, and released the poor animal, and hardly had he done this act of kindness when a heavy sea turned over the after part of the vessel, which separated in many pieces, and Philip found himself struggling in the waves.  He seized upon a part of the deck which supported him, and was borne away by the surf towards the beach.  In a few minutes he was near