She rolled more heavily all the time, and Robert noticed that she was deeper in the water.

Beyond a doubt she was leaking fast.
The captain conferred with the second mate, a tall, thin man whom he called Stubbs.

Then the two, standing together near the mast, watched the ship for a while and Robert, a little distance away, watched them.
He was now keenly alive to his own fate.

Young and vital, he did not want to die.

He had never known a time when he was more anxious to live.
He was not going to be sold into slavery on a West India plantation.
Fortune had saved him from that fate, and it might save him from new perils.