A SHIPWRECK. 225 



tion, one at a time obtained some relief, by stretching at full 

 length on the barrels in the hold, squeezing himself close up 

 to the keelson." What a situation ! To rightly conceive 

 its horrors, we must know that their only means of distin- 

 guishing day from night, was by the light which struck 

 from above into the sea, and was reflected up through the 

 cabin skylight, and thence through the trap-hatch into the 

 lazarette. " The day and night of Tuesday the 17th, and 

 of Wednesday the 18th, passed without relief, without food, 

 almost without hope ; but each encouraged the others when 

 neither could hope for himself ; endeavouring to assuage the 

 pangs of hunger by chewing the bark stripped off from the 

 hoops of the casks. Want of fresh air threatening them 

 with death from suffocation, the mate worked almost inces- 

 santly for two days and one night, in endeavouring, with his 

 knife, to cut a hole through the hull." 



There is something very terrible in contemplating such a 

 position, in seeing the mad energy of the mate thus to cut a 

 hole, which would have caused instant destruction to the 

 suff'erers, since it was solely owing to this confined air that 

 the vessel floated. Bad as the tainted air was, and threaten- 

 ing life every hour, it was the sole safety of the crew. They 

 knew nothino; of this ; and when the mate's knife broke, a 

 savage wrath at their frustrated hope must have seized them. 

 " In the dead of the night of Wednesday, the vessel suddenly 

 struck heavily : on the third blow the stern dropped so much 

 that all hands were forced to make the best of their way, one 

 by one, further towards the bows ; in attempting which 

 poor Vincent was caught by the water and drowned, falling 



