Poor old ship! we've sailed many a mile together, she and I; and now, to think that, crippled by that gale and almost having completed her v'yage, she should be burnt like a log of firewood off Cape Horn!" "Never mind, sir," said I, sympathisingly.

"It has not happened through any fault of yours." "No, my lad, I don't believe it has, for a cargo o' coal is a ticklish thing to take half round the world; as more vessels are lost in carrying it than folks suppose! However, this is the last we'll ever see of the old _Esmeralda_, so far as standing on her deck goes; still, I tell you what, Leigh, you may possibly live to be a much older man than I am, but you'll never come across a ship easier to handle in a gale, or one that would go better on a bowline!" "No, sir, I don't think I shall," I replied to this panegyric on the doomed vessel, quite appreciating all the skipper's feelings of regret at her destruction; but just then the flames with a roar rushed up the main hatch, approaching towards the poop every moment nearer and nearer.
This at once recalled Captain Billings from the past to the present.
"Have you got everything aboard the boats ?" he sang out in his customary voice to Mr Macdougall, his tones as firm and clear as if he had not been a moment before almost on the point of crying.

"Are all the provisions and water in ?" "Aye, aye, an' stoowed awa', too, Cap'en," answered the mate, to whom had been entrusted the execution of all the necessary details.

"A very thin's aboord, and naething forgot, I reecken." "Then it's time we were aboard, too," said the skipper.

"Boatswain, muster the hands!" Jorrocks didn't have to tap on the deck with a marlinspike now to call them, in the way he used to summon the watch below to reef topsails in the stormy weather we had off Madeira and elsewhere; for the men were all standing round, ready to start over the side as soon as the skipper gave the word of command to go.
Captain Billings then called over the list of the crew from the muster roll, which he held in his hand along with the rest of the "ship's papers"-- such as the _Esmeralda's_ certificate of registry, the manifest of the cargo, and her clearance from the custom-house officers at Cardiff; when, all having answered to their names, with the exception of the two invalids, Mr Ohlsen, and Harmer, the seaman, both of whom were already in the long-boat, the skipper gave the word to pass down the gangway, apportioning seven hands in all to the jolly-boat, under charge of Mr Macdougall, and the remainder of our complement to the long-boat, under his own care.
Including the invalids, we were seven-and-twenty souls in all--now compelled to abandon our good ship, and trust to those two frail boats to take us to the distant coast of Tierra del Fuego, of which we were not yet even in sight; and it was with sad hearts that we went down the side of this poor _Esmeralda_ for the last time, quitting what had been our floating home for the two months that had elapsed since we left England, for the perils we had encountered in her had only endeared her the more to us! Captain Billings was the last to abandon the ship; lingering not merely until we had descended to the boats, seven in one and nineteen as yet only in the other without him, but waiting while we settled ourselves along the thwarts; when, turning round, he put his feet on the cleats of the side ladder and came down slowly, looking up still at the old vessel, as if loth to leave her in such an extremity.
The jolly-boat had been already veered astern on receiving her allotted number, the long-boat only waiting alongside for the skipper, with a man in the bows and another amidships, fending her off from the ship's side with a couple of boat-hooks, so that the little barque should not dash against the hull of the bigger one, now she was so loaded up--a collision would have insured destruction to all in her, the huge billows of the Southern Ocean rolling in at intervals, and raising her so high aloft as to overtop the ship sometimes, and again carrying her down right under the _Esmeralda's_ counter, thus making her run the risk of being stove in every instant.
It was too perilous a proximity; so, as soon as Captain Billings had got down into the stern-sheets, he gave the order to shove off.
"Easy her away gently, men," he said, as he took up the tiller lines, watching with a critical eye the movements of the men amidships and in the bow, as they poled the boat along the side of the ship until it passed clear of her by the stern.