“Up oars!” said the coxswain, with energy.

“Lively, Ward,” added the first lieutenant.

“Let fall!” continued the coxswain, as a billow lifted the boat, so that those on board could see the ship’s deck.  “Give way together!”

The barge, tossed like a feather on the high seas, gathered headway, and moved off towards the wreck.

The lowering of the barge had been so successful that the same method was adopted with the gig; but as she was under the lee of the ship, there was less difficulty in getting her off.  She pulled round the ship’s bow, and having made less stern way in starting both boats came up under the counter of the wreck at about the same time.  When the barge and gig reached the ship, a line was thrown to each of them over the quarter, which the bowman caught, and made fast to the ring.

“Where is the captain of the ship?” demanded Mr. Haven.

“Here,” shouted that officer.

“How many have you aboard?”

“Eighteen!”

“You must slide down on a rope over the stern; we can’t go alongside,” continued the first lieutenant.

“Ay, ay, sir!” responded the captain of the ship.  “I have two women and two children on board.”

“You must lower them in slings,” added Haven, prompted by Mr. Fluxion.

[Illustration:  THE WRECK OF THE SYLVIA. page 254.]

The people on board the wreck went to work, and one of the women was lowered into each boat at the same time.  A long loop was made in the end of the rope, and the woman sat down in the bight of it, holding on to the line with her hands.  At a moment when the sea favored the movement, the boats were hauled up close to the ship’s stern, the passenger caught by two of the crew, and hauled on board.  A boy and a girl were let down in the same manner.  The captain, mates, and seamen came down the rope hand over hand.

Each boat now had nine passengers, who were stowed in the stern sheets and on the bottom.  The ropes from the ship were cast off, and the oarsmen were ordered to give way.  The barge and the gig rose and fell, now leaping up on the huge billows, and then plunging down deep into the trough of the sea; but they had been well trimmed, and though the comb of the sea occasionally broke into them, drenching the boys with spray, the return to the Young America was safely effected.

“How happens it that you are all boys?” asked the captain of the wrecked ship, who was in Paul Kendall’s boat.

“That’s the Academy Ship,” replied the second lieutenant.

“The what?” exclaimed the captain.

“It is the Young America.  She is a school ship.”

“O, ay!”

There was no disposition to talk much in the boats.  The officers and crews were fully employed in keeping the barge and gig right side up in the tremendous sea, and though all hands were filled with curiosity to know the particulars of the wreck, all questions were wisely deferred until they were on the deck of the ship.