A VOYAGE IN THE MOUTH SEAS. 



heavily upon the gunwale, and the next instant was secured by a 

 double turn of a rope round the mast and the seat in which it was 

 shipped. The boat pitched heavily, and was enveloped in showers 

 of spray. At this moment the smuggler, looking for instant death, 

 and apparently thinking it " becoming to die drunk," was taking a 

 powerful pull at the brandy flask ; Frank scarcely understanding the 

 danger, and deafened by the terrible dashing of the sea, remained 

 rooted to his seat ; and Flora, happily insensible of her situation, lay 

 stretched near him with her head supported on his knee. In a few 

 seconds the dark mass of ice appeared on the starboard bow, the 

 waves dashing with tremendous uproar against its foot, leaping in 

 foam up its ragged sides, and rushing with the most hideous discord 

 into the caverns which they had worn in its substance. The thick 

 vapours concealed from the eye the height of the awful cliff, towards 

 which they were swept with a force which would be sufficient to 

 dash them to pieces against it. Arundel abandoned the tiller, and 

 raising the almost lifeless form of Flora from its reclining position, 

 clasped her closely to his heart, as if to secure, even in death, the 

 presence of her who was most dear to him. At that awful moment 

 his murdered friend, his aged mother, his beloved sister, the scenes 

 of his childhood, all that citing to his imagination and his heart at 

 other times, was forgotten ; but love, the noblest and the purest pas- 

 sion of the soul, which lives when hope, and fear, and ambition, and 

 revenge are quenched love, stronger even than despair, lifted him 

 above the horrible destiny to which he was doomed, and seemed 

 even from the depths of the engulphing ocean to point triumphantly 

 to the skies. He bent down his head upon the neck of the maiden, 

 and mentally addressing the throne of grace, waited with resolved 

 mind the approaching catastrophe. 



But the kind Providence whom he supplicated had prepared a 

 path for them through the stormy waters, and, out of the very object 

 which seemed to present to them inevitable death, had ministered the 

 means of their safety. Instead of being dashed against the icy cliffs, 

 the boat shot past within a score of yards of the breakers, and was 

 hurried with a velocity which seemed every moment to increase, 

 along the base of the huge ramparts that towered above, and some- 

 times even projected over their course. The smuggler presently 

 comprehended that they had been driven between two icebergs, and 

 that the rapidity with which they were swept along was owing to the 

 current setting through the contracted channel. Though it seemed 

 almost impossible but that they should be driven against a projecting 

 point of the berg, or be whirled down into the sea by the eddies 

 which the inequalities of the ice created, or crushed together by the 

 meeting of the masses, yet the unlooked for respite had in some mea- 

 sure restored his hopes, and with the coolness which a true seaman 

 rarely loses while any thing remains to be done, and which seems 

 more like the obeying a powerful instinct than mental decision, he 

 shipped an oar, and by a few vigorous strokes got the boat farther 

 from the iceberg, and more into the strength of the current. This 

 proved the means of saving them from immediate destruction ; for 

 when they had shot along with the swiftness of an arrow for about 



