The Blue Clipper — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ag TE ee Pee ds OES ee a Se ig) SPOS ee ee Se ee ee ‘i 78 ' ‘{T1 BLUE CLIPFER, Meanwhile, almost dead with terror, Mary Clare had sunk down on her knees, to the floor of her room, grasping the side of her berth. The shock of the explosion had thrown her violently to one side ; she bad risen to see the apartment full of flames, now bursting in on every side. The heat almost suffocated her. Gazing round her upon the hissing, roaring fire-caldron, she gave herself up as lost. This part of the vessel had now keeled over, so that the water also entered the room through small openings made by Bend’s ax. But for these openings the poor gir] must soon have perished. Suddenly the blows of the ax, which she had previously heard, were renewed. Timbers and planks soon guve way, and a nimble form crawled iuto this fiery oven. It was Captain Wand! There was no time to lose, The water, roaring and gur- gling, was already bursting into the lower openings madé; in a few minutes the apartment must be overflowed. The young girl, tottering forward, fell half-fauinting into the arms of her lover, gasping out his name. He caught her tightly round the waist, and with his burden, plunged into the sea, to be picked up by the frigate’s boats. A minute later, down went all that remained of the cutter; a few fiery timbers, with hissing, gurgling sound, disappearing in the sea! , CHAPTER XY. CONCLUSION, Tr was the night following the destruction of the cutter; a dark night, the moon hidden by heavy clouds. A smal] boat left the frigate, containing ope man, This per- son was Tom Bend. He worked the boat to the foot of the conical rocks with a pair of paddies. Below him there was another boat—a skiff, bi: which a man, muffled in a cloak, and wearing a mask, bad — ie eeOMMISHOOKS: com