342 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



to hear the rush of her prow, or to see through the 

 snow-drift the gleaming of her sails. 



This was but a momentary gladness. The ship, I 

 knew, could not be far off, but for any good she could 

 do me, she might have been in the heart of the Atlantic 

 ocean. Ere she could have altered her course, I must 

 have drifted a long way to leeward, and in that dim 

 snowy night how was such a speck to be seen ? I saw 

 a flash of lightning, and then there was thunder. It 

 was the ship firing a gun to let me know, if still alive, 

 that she was somewhere lying-to. But wherefore ? I 

 was separated from her by a dire necessity by many 

 thousand fierce waves, that would not let my shrieks 

 be heard. Each succeeding gun was heard fainter and 

 fainter, till at last I cursed the sound, that, scarcely 

 heard above the hollow rumbling of the tempestuous 

 sea, told me that the ship was farther and farther off, 

 till she and her heartless crew had left me to my fate. 

 Why did they not send out all their boats to row round 

 and round all the night through, for the sake of one 

 whom they pretended to love so well? I blamed, 

 blessed, and cursed them by fits, till every emotion of 

 my soul was exhausted, and I clung in sullen despair 

 to the wretched piece of wood that still kept me 

 from eternity. 



AVas it not strange, that during all this time the 

 image of my beloved friends at home never once 

 flashed across my mind 1 ? My thoughts had never 

 escaped beyond the narrow and dim horizon of the 



