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One day when she was discharging in London there came alongside an old seaman, weather-worn and hungry-looking. Something in the build of the old ship caught his eye, and with quivering lips and twitching hands he climbed on board. Round about the deck he quested until, half hidden by a huge pile of lumber, he found the bell and read on it, “Lion, London, 1842.” Then he sat down and covered his face with his hands. Presently he arose and sought the grimy mate purposefully. At an incredibly low wage he obtained the berth of cook,—it was either that or starve, although now he had found his old ship, he felt that he would go for nothing rather than miss another voyage in her. Soon after they sailed for the “fall voyage” to Quebec, making a successful run over, much to the delight of the ancient cook, who was never weary of telling any one who would listen of the feats of sailing performed by the Lion when he was quartermaster of her “way back in the fifties.” Urged by greed, for he was part-owner, and under no fear of the law, the skipper piled upon her such a deck-load of deals that she no longer resembled a ship, she was only comparable to a vast timber stack with three masts. She was hardly clear of Newfoundland on her homeward passage, when one of the most terrible gales of all that terrible winter set in. Snow and sleet and frost-fog, a blinding white whirl of withering cold, assailed her, paralysing the hapless handful of men who vainly strove on their lofty platform to do their duty, exposed fully to all the wrath of that icy tempest. One after one the worn-out sails, like autumn leaves, were stripped from yard and stay; day after day saw the perishing mariners die. The sea froze upon her where it fell, so that now she resembled an iceberg; and though the remnant of the crew tried many times to get at the fastenings of the chains that secured the deck-load so as to send it adrift, they could not. At last only one man was left alive, and he, strangely enough, was the old cook. And while still the gale was at its height, he suddenly seemed to renew all his lost strength. Buckling tight his belt with firm fingers, a new light gleaming in his eyes, he strode aft and seized the long-disused wheel. Standing erect and alert he conned her gravely, getting her well before the wind. Onward she fled, as if knowing the touch of an old friend. Gradually the lean fingers stiffened, the fire died out of the eyes, until, just as the last feeble drops in that brave old heart froze solid, the Lion dashed into a mountainous berg and all her shattered timbers fell apart. Lovely and pleasant had she been in her life, and in her death she was no danger to her wandering sisters.