“Ay, ay, Cap; I can put her just wherever you want her.  Only give the word,” answered the pilot.

“I do give it,” said Captain May, as a cloud of smoke puffed out from the edge of one of the hatches.  “Put her there, for she’ll be ablaze now before many minutes.”

As the ship’s head was turned towards the flats the revenue-cutter ran alongside.  Her captain, followed by a dozen bluejackets, boarded the ship, and the former, taking in her desperate situation at a glance, said to Captain May, “You must scuttle her at once, captain; it’s your only chance to save her.”

“Very well, sir,” answered Captain May.  “I think so myself, but am glad to have your authority for doing so.”

As the ship’s anchors were let go, her carpenter and a squad of men from the cutter, armed with axes and augurs, tumbled down into her cabin, and began what seemed like a most furious work of destruction.  The axes crashed through the carved woodwork, furniture was hurled to one side, great holes were cut in the cabin floor, and the ship’s planking was laid bare in a dozen places below the water-line.  Then the augurs were set to work, and in a few minutes a dozen streams of water, spurting up like fountains, were rushing and gurgling into the ship.

While this was going on in the cabin, the ship’s crew, assisted by others of the revenue men, were removing everything of value on which they could lay their hands to the deck of the cutter.

Suddenly those in the cabin heard a great cry and a roaring noise on deck and as they rushed up the companion-way they saw a column of flame shooting up from the fore-hatch, half-mast high.

Half the people had sprung on board the revenue-cutter as she sheered off, which she did at the first burst of flame, and now the others filled the boats, which were quickly lowered and shoved off.  As the boats were being lowered a second burst of flame came from the main-hatch, and already tongues of fire were lapping the sails and lofty spars.

Mark had worked with the rest in saving whatever he could lift, and did not think of leaving the ship until Captain May said,

“Come, Mark, it’s time to go.  Jump into this boat.”

Mark did as he was told, and as Captain May sprang in after him, and shouted “Lower away!” not a living soul was left on board the unfortunate vessel.

As the men in the boats rested on their oars, and lay at a safe distance from the ship, watching the grand spectacle of her destruction, they saw that she was settling rapidly by the stern.  Lower and lower she sank, and higher and higher mounted the fierce flames, until, all at once, her bows lifted high out of the water, her stern seemed to shoot under it, then the great hull plunged out of sight, and a mighty cloud of smoke and steam rose to the sky.  Through this cloud the flames along the upper masts and yards shone with a lurid red.  At this point the fire-boat arrived; a couple of well-directed streams of water from her powerful engines soon extinguished these flames, and the three blackened masts, pointing vaguely upward, were all that remained to show where, so short a time before, the great ship had floated.