THE WORLD OF ICE. 321 nor’-east. Anyhow it wos pintin’ somewhere or other round the compass. But, as I wos sayin’, when Mrs, Ellice struck the water (an’ she told me all about it herself, ye must know) she sank, and then she comed up, and didn’t know how it wos, but she caught hold of an oar that wos floatin’ close beside her, and screamed for help; but no help came, for it wos dark, and the ship had disappeared, so she gave herself up for lost. But in a little the oar struck agin a big piece o the wreck o’ the pirate’s boat, and she managed to clamber upon it, and lay there, a’most dead with cold, till mornin’, The first thing she saw when day broke forth wos a big ship, bearin’ right down on her, and she wos jist about run down when one o’ the men observed her from the bow. “* Ward a-port!’ roared the man, “* Port it is, eried the man at the wheel, an’ round went the ship like a duck, jist missin’ the bit of wreck as she passed. A boat wos lowered, and Mrs, Ellice wos took aboard. Well, she found that the ship wos bound for the Sandwich Islands, and as they didn’t mean to touch at any port in passin’, Mrs. Ellice had to go on with her. Misfortins don’t come single, howsiver. The ship wos wrecked on a coral reef, and the crew had to take to their boats, which they did, an’ got safe to land; but the land they got to wos an out-o’-the-way island among the Feejees, and a spot where ships never come, so they had to make up their minds to stop there.” “I thought,” said Amos Parr, “that the Feejees 21