Now that the needs of another were laid upon me, I began to move about a little more briskly, and to notice our condition with returning interest. For some time the strange steadiness of the ship had puzzled me without arousing any definite inquiry in my mind as to the cause of it. But in crossing the deck to re-enter the cabin the true significance of that want of motion suddenly burst upon me, for I saw the calm face of the water only a few inches from the deck-line. The Blitzen was sinking. During the typhoon she must have received tremendous injuries from the wreckage of her top-hamper, that, floating alongside, entangled in the web of its rigging, was as dangerous as so many rocks would have been. There was urgent need now for thought and action also, for there was nothing of any kind on deck floatable. Boats, spars, hen-coops, all had gone. A thousand futile thoughts chased one another through my throbbing brain, but they ran in circles that led nowhere. There seemed to be no possible means of escape. Yet somehow I was not hopeless. I felt a curious reliance upon the fact that we two small people had come through so much unhurt in any way, and this baseless unreasoning faith in our good (?) fortune forbade me to despair. So that I cannot say I felt greatly surprised when I presently saw on the starboard side forrard a small _sampan_ floating placidly, its grass painter made fast to the fore-chains. There was no mystery about its appearance. It had brought those awful visitors whose defeat caused You Sing his life, and was probably the only surviving relic of some junk that had foundered in the storm. The sight of it did me a world of good. Rushing to Elsie, I pointed out the fact of our immediate danger, and of the hope left us, and after some little difficulty succeeded in getting her into the _sampan_. The Blitzen was now so low in the water that my remaining time was countable by seconds. I flew into the cabin, snatched up a few biscuits and the large can of water that stood in the bathroom, and rushed for the boat. As I scrambled into her with my burden I noticed shudderingly that the ship was beginning to move, but with such a motion! It was like the death-throe of a man--a physical fact with which of late I had been well acquainted. Every plank of her groaned as if in agony; she gave a quivering sideway stagger. My fingers trembled so that I could hardly cast adrift the painter, which I was compelled to do, having no knife. I got the clumsy hitches adrift at last, and with one of the rough oars gave our frail craft a vigorous shove off, Elsie staring all the while at the huge hull with dilating eyes and drawn white face. Presently the Blitzen seemed to stumble; a wave upreared itself out of the smooth brightness of the placid sea and embraced her bows, drawing them gently down. So gently, like a tired woman sinking to rest, did the Blitzen leave the light, and only a few foam-flecked whorls and spirals on the surface marked for a minute or two the spot where she had been.