She immediately let go both hands and floated from the vessel, and made a desperate effort to reach her boy.

The Captain, almost beside himself, put the helm hard down, and was in the act of plunging in.

Meantime his wife and son were drifting farther away.

Just then, making a second desperate effort, she succeeded in grasping her child.

At this moment a canoe shot like an arrow past the sloop, in it was Paul Guidon, paddling with might and main, making straight for the drowning mother and her boy.