A NIGHT'S PERIL. 141 



escape. I cannot pledge my own experience to the 

 truth of this theory. The spirit of man is so firmly 

 wedded to hope, that it is in extremity only that this 

 blessing can be torn from us. But the divorce may 

 be effected at last, even while the tide of life beats in 

 the veins. I am quite sure that, during some hours 

 of this night, we both felt perfectly devoid of hope, 

 and that we could not have felt more certain of death 

 had we actually passed the gloomy portals. But this 

 was only latterly, when our physical energies had 

 succumbed under protracted exertion, when every 

 expedient we could devise for prolonging our chance 

 seemed to have failed. At first I could not make up 

 my mind that our case was hopeless, nor familiarise 

 myself with the idea of approaching death. No ra- 

 tional ground remained of expecting anything that 

 could rescue us ; and yet I could not forego the ex- 

 pectation that something would turn up. Our perish- 

 ing seemed too bad a thing to be true. It could not 

 be that our jocund morning should have such an 

 issue ; that we, so recent from the companionship of 

 youth and grace, should be hurried to the contact of 

 death. And yet all the while that I thus yielded to 

 the promptings of natural instinct, I felt that we were 

 drifting on each moment rapidly to the catastrophe. 



While any room for activity remains, there is to 

 be found some relief in exertion. The full bitter- 

 ness of our condition was not felt till we had tried 

 every device that we could think of, and had been 



