“Can’t make out her flags, sir,” he said.  “Too much wind.  Looks like a barque with only her mizzen standing.”

“Gimme the glass,” said the Captain, climbing up beside him.  He braced himself against the irons and took a look at her, swinging accurately to the roll of the ship.  Beneath him the wind-whipped water tumbled in grey leagues; the stranger seemed poised on the rim of it.  From her gaff, a dot of a flag showed a blur against the sky, and a string from her mast-head was equally vague.

“That’ll be her ensign upside down at the gaff,” he said.  “Port your helm there; we’ll go down and look at her.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”  The mate passed the word and came over.  “How would it be to see one of the boats clear, father!”

“Aren’t the boats clear?” demanded the Captain.

“Oh yes, they’re clear,” replied the mate.  “You had us put new pins in the blocks, you know.”  He met his father’s steady eye defiantly.  “When are a steamer’s boats ever clear for hoisting out?” he asked.

“Always, when the mate’s fit for his job,” was the answer.  “Go and make sure of the starboard lifeboat, and call the watch.”

The Captain took his ship round to windward of the distressed vessel, running astern of her within a quarter of a mile.  She proved to be the remains of a barque, as the mate had guessed, a deep-laden wooden ship badly swept by the sea.  From the wing of the bridge the Captain’s glasses showed him the length of her deck, cluttered with the wreck of houses torn up by the roots, while the fall of the spars had taken her starboard bulwarks with it.  Her boats were gone; a davit stuck up at the end of the poop crumpled like a ram’s horn; and by the taffrail her worn and sodden crew clustered and cheered the Burdock.

The Captain rang off his engines and rang again to stand by in the engine-room.  The mate came up the ladder to him while his hand was yet at the telegraph.

“Lifeboat’s all clear for lowering, sir,” he said.  “Noble, Peters, Hansen, and Kyland are to go in her.”  He waited.

The old captain stood looking at the wreck, while the steamship rolled tumultuously in the trough.

“Who goes in charge?” he asked, after a minute’s silence.

“I’ll go, father,” said the mate eagerly.  He paused, but the Captain said nothing.

“You know,” proceeded the mate, “father, you do know there’s none of ’em here can handle a boat like me.”

“Aye,” said the Captain, “you can do it.”  He looked at his son keenly.  “It ’ud make a good yarn to spin to Minnie,” he said, with an unwilling smile.

The mate laughed agreeably.  “Dear Minnie,” he said.  “Then I’ll go, father.”

“And I’ll just see to the hoisting out of that boat,” said the Captain.  “Good thing I had you put in the new pins.”

The third mate on the bridge rang for steam and made a lee for the lowering of the lifeboat, the hands put a strain on the tackles, and the carpenter and bo’sun went to work to knock out the chocks on which she rested.  Her steel-shod keel had rusted into them.