it pointing in the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven! I saw it close in upon us.

"One mast was broken short off six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sails and rigging; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat, which she did without a moment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable,

beat

the side as if it would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made to cut this portion of the wreck away; for as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, - especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment. The sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge.

6

"The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had struck once,' the same boatman hoarsely said in my ears, and then lifted, and struck again.' I understood him to add, that she was parting amidships; and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to

the rigging of the remaining mast, active figure with the curling hair.

uppermost, the

"There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore; now nothing but her keel, as she sprang wildly over, and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on the shore increased; men groaned, and clasped their hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. I found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes.

86 They were making out to me in an agitated way, - I don't know how; for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to understand, that the life-boat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and could do nothing; and that, as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, there was nothing left to try: when I noticed that some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front. I ran to him, as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for

help. But distracted though I was by a sight so new to me, and terrible, the determination in his face, and his look out to sea, exactly the same look as I remembered in connection with the morning after Em❜ly's flight, — awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both arms, and implored the men with whom I had been speaking not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir off that sand.

"Another cry arose on shore; and, looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph around the active figure left alone upon the mast. ·

"Against such a sight, and against such determination. as that of the calmly-desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. Mas'r Davy,' he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, if my time is come, 'tis come: if 't'aint, I'll bide it. Lord above, bless you, and bless all! Mates, make we ready! agoing off!'

I'm

"I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was bent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and pene

trating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then I saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers, a rope in his hand or slung to his wrist, another round his body, and several of the best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet.

“The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon the mast hung by a thread. Still he clung to it. He had a singular red cap on, not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer color; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all to wave it. I saw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend.

"Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope, which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam, then drawn again to land. They hauled in hastily.

"He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he took no thought of that. He seemed

hurriedly to give them some directions for leaving him more free, or so I judged from the motion of his arm, and was gone as before.

“And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was nothing; but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that, with one more of his vigorous strokes, he would be clinging to it, when a high, green, vast hillside of water, moving on shoreward from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone!

"Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been broken in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation was in every face. They drew him to my very feet, insensible, dead. He was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, I remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried: but he had been beaten to death by the great wave; and his generous heart was stilled forever.

"As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned, and all was done, a fisherman, who had known me when Em❜ly and I were children, and ever since, whispered my name at the door.