140 True Story of a Storm at Sea. [Avueust, 
they were by a universal scream of terror from the spot whence they 
issued, I confess that they struck upon my senses like a death-warrant. 
—< The dead lights !”—I thought the woman was kindly giving us 
notice that our time was come, by letting us know either that some 
frightful signal had been hoisted on the shore, to warn us that we were 
on the point of going on the rocks; or else that the captain had ordered 
a signal of distress to be hoisted on board the vessel ; and that, in either 
case, the signal in question was called “the dead lights.” 
Enough, however, of my own feelings for the present ; and let me 
endeavour to describe a few of the indications by which I was enabled to 
judge of those of others. And, first, let me speak of one of the sweetest 
visions of beauty that ever presented itself toa waking, or even a dream~ 
ing fancy. It appeared that the occasion of the female attendant having 
called for these “ dead lights,” was that a sea had burst in the window 
of the little cabin where the five or six beds were, and had nearly filled 
the place with water; and the occupiers of this place now, for the first 
time, made their appearance in our part of the vessel. The woman had 
scarcely uttered these words, which caused so much consternation among 
us, than the other folding-door at which she stood flew open, and in rushed 
half-a-dozen females, drenched with wet, and apparently half dead with 
fear and illness. I shall not particularly describe any of these, for ter- 
ror is, at its best, the most humiliating and ungainly of passions ; and, 
when it is acting at its height, on common minds in common persons; 
produces effects no less disgusting than painful. But there was one per- 
son—not among them, but following them—the sight of whom displaced 
for a time all other objects and thoughts from my mind. It was a young 
creature, apparently about fourteen years of age, who came drooping out 
.from the inner cabin, and looking, as I have thought ever since, like an 
angel dropped by accident from some other sphere ; or still more, per- 
haps, like the vision of Margaret, moving among the horrors of the Hartz 
mountains, in the Faust of Goéthe. I think, in the “ History of Peter 
Wilkins,” there is a description of one of the skyey creatures that he : 
becomes acquainted with, who falls into the sea, and is rescued by him. 
She reminded me partly of this, too; and also of Kailyal, when she is (| 
rescued by her father from the river, into which she had fallen in endea- 
vouring to escape from the persecuting rage of Kehama. Her clothes ‘ 
clung to her sylph-like form, as if they were a part of it ; and the water ¢ 
dripped from her hair upon the ground as she walked. She was alone, ¢ 
with no one near her ; and, passing gently along to a vacant place which 
some one in their terror had left open for her, she seated herself, without 
saying a word, and looked—as I never saw any one look before, and as 3 
I shall not pretend to describe, except by negatives. Her face seemed B/ 
no more capable of expressing fear, or pain, or impatience, than a . 
flower can ; but, like a plucked flower, she merely drooped, and grew 
paler and paler, and hung down her sweet head, and seemed to be fading 
and fading away, as if she was slipping, willingly and imperceptibly, _ 
from life into death. There she sat, on the same spot, without moving © 
or speaking. during nearly all the rest of the storm; and there I sat, 
nearly opposite to her, turning every now and then from the sights of 
pitiful and yet pitiable weakness and terror that were about me, to dri 
in a draught of that calm composure which seemed to breathe from h 
like a halo ; and which I can compare to nothing but that air of sile 
solemn sweetness, which seems to pour, like an emanation, from some of 
