144 The Lonely Man of the Ocean. [FEE. 



sensations of novelty. National and early-acquired feelings obtained a 

 temporary triumph over individual strength of character. The torn and 

 misshapen clouds, as their black forms were from time to time rendered 

 visible by the blue light that darted through them, appeared to our 

 young German like careering spirits of the tempest ; and the rent sail?, 

 as they flapped backward and forwards, or were driven like shattered 

 pennons of the blast, seemed, as the momentary light cast their dark 

 shadows athwart the deck, to be foul fiends of the ocean, engaged in the 

 malign work of dismantling that gallant vessel. To Loeffler's temporarily 

 excited imagination, even the tossing billows seemed, in that portentous 

 light, to (t surge up" by hundreds the faces of those who had found 

 beneath them a dismal and untimely grave ; and the lost mariners 

 appeared to be crowding round the vessel they had so recently manned. 

 But Christian authoritatively bade away these phantoms, and they 

 speedily left a mind too strong to give them a long entertainment. 



The storm subsided, and the moon, rising over dense masses of 

 cloud which, dispersed from the mid-heaven, now cumbered the 

 horizon saw our young German lying, in the sleep of confidence and 

 exhaustion, on the still humid deck. He slumbered on, unconscious 

 that the main-deck was now almost level with the waves unconscious 

 of the dark gulf preparing to receive him ! The very steadiness which 

 the waters, accumulating within her, had given to the ship, protracted 

 the fatal repose of the sleeper. He woke not until his senses were 

 restored, too late, by the gushing of the waters over the deck. 



Down, down, a thousand fathom deep, goes the gallant and ill-fated 

 vessel ; and with her drawn into her dark vortex sinks her lone and 

 unpitied inhabitant ! 



It was in less than a month after this event that Loeffler awoke in a spa- 

 cious and beautiful apartment, the windows of which opened into a 

 garden of orange and lime-trees, whose sweet scent filled the air, and 

 whose bright verdure and golden fruit shewed gay and cheerful in the 

 sunshine. Christian believed that his awakening was in paradise ; nor 

 was the thought less easily harboured that the object he best loved in life 

 stood by his couch, while his head rested on her arm. " And thou too/' 

 he said, confusedly " thou, too, hast reached the fair land of peace, the 

 golden garden of God !" " His senses are returning he speaks he 

 knows me !" exclaimed Ernestine, clasping her hands in gratitude to 

 Heaven. 



She had just received her husband from the hands of the stout captain 

 of a Dutch galliot, whose crew had discovered and rescued the floating 

 and senseless body of Christian on the very morning succeeding the 

 catastrophe we have described. The humble galliot had a speedier and 

 safer passage than the noble man of war ; and, in an unusually short 

 time, she made the harbour of Lisbon, to which port she was bound. It 

 is needless to add that the German recovered both his health and intel- 

 lects, and lived to increase the tender devotion of his bride, by a recital 

 of the dangers and horrors of his Solitary Voyage. 



T. C. A. 



