SEARCH FOR MISSING BOATS. 151 



when half-past nine P.M. came, we made up our 

 minds they were all lost; and, as the wind 

 howled hoarsely through the rigging, and the 

 waves beat savagely against our ship, some of 

 us thought we could hear the shrieks of poor 

 Berry above the roaring storm ; others ima- 

 gined, in their melancholy, that they could 

 occasionally hear the captain's voice ordering to 

 "bear up;" while the boats had been seen 

 more than fifteen times by anxious spirits, who 

 had strained their eyes through the gloom, 

 until fancy robbed them of their true specu- 

 lation, and left her phantasmagoria in ex- 

 change. 



There were not many on board who did 

 not think of home on that dreadful night ; 

 there were not many among us who did not 

 curse the sea, and all the sea-going avocations, 

 while with the same breath they blessed the 

 cheerful fireside of their parents, which, at that 

 moment, they would have given all they pos- 

 sessed to see. But at the moment despair 

 was firmly settling upon us, a man from aloft 

 cried out that he could see a light right ahead 



