206 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



plunged into the deep and disappeared. The 

 captain and the crew were now in the water, 

 clinging to the pieces of the demolished boat. 

 They were fifteen miles from the ship, and could 

 not be seen from its mast-head. The other boats 

 were gone, they knew not where. Apparently, 

 every chance of rescue was cut off, and nothing 

 awaited them but a watery grave. It was twelve 

 o'clock at noon. The hours of one, two, three, 

 four, five, and six passed slowly away, and still 

 they were floating, almost exhausted, upon the 

 heaving billows of the Pacific, when the ship 

 rose on the swelling seas, so that they could 

 just catch a glimpse of her rolling spars. 



" Oh ! how fervently I prayed," said one of 

 these mariners, when afterward relating the 

 scene, " that God would in some way providen- 

 tially interpose and save our lives ! I thought 

 of my wife, of my little children, of my prayer- 

 less life, of the awful account I had to render 

 at the bar of God for grieving the Spirit and 

 neglecting the Saviour. All the horrors of this 

 dreadful death were forgotten in the thought 

 that in one short hour T was to render up an 



