bjects! His
comrade was then watching by the side of an almost dying wife, who had
just made him the father of his first-born son. Could Laonce summon him
from that spot of his heart's tenderest duties, to attend to the roaring
guns of distress from a stranger vessel? Impossible! He rose, and looked
out on the night. He listened to the second signal, he wrung his hands,
and, sighing, was returning to his couch again. His wife had then risen
also. She clasped her arms round him, and a big tear stood in both her
eyes, "You tell me," said she, "that your people do not make those
thunders to heaven, and to earth, till they are drowning. You know you
can save them all. Go, Lao,"--and she smiled; "go; and the foreign
chief, after you have saved him, will give you something for me--either
a looking-glass, or a silk handkerchief. Go, Lao."

He wound his arms round the gentle pleader; and, almost ashamed that the
father and the husband in his heart, should make him calculate between
his own life and that of the gallant crew, he told her, that the tempest
raged too tremendously for him to dare stemming it. But she laughingly
repulsed his caresses, accusing his fondness for her as the inducement
of his assumed apprehensions; and being too long accustomed to the
rashness of her own people, in braving every weather, to believe any
plea of positive danger, she still persisted; saying she must have a
silk handkerchief that night from yon ship, or she should think he loved
his sound sleep better than he did his fond Berea.

The enthusiastic love which still warmed the faithful husband's breast,
and a third signal of distress from the struggling vessel, mastered his
better judgment, and, seizing his canoe, he dashed into the foaming
waves and boldly stemmed their fury to the object of his mission. The
overjoyed crew, as they heard his voice hailing them through the storm,
cast out a rope, by which they hoisted him into their cracking ship. The
most rapturous acknowledgments from the captain, greeted him as soon as
he jumped on the deck; and the eager seamen called him their deliverer.
He was happy! he said, he was happy in the achievement of what he had
done; he had obeyed the wish of his beloved Berea, and he had survived
the lashing surge. He was happy, in the confidence that he should rescue
the gallant vessel he came to take under his control. But that hour of
happiness was his last. He took the helm in his hands; he gave the
requi