le
to save her; but he died with her, as a brave man would do. Let us
hope that they went together to the rest and joy in Heaven.

There were only nine left on the wreck which still stuck to the
rock--four of the passengers, and five of the crew. Words cannot
describe their sufferings while they held on for dear life; the waves,
which had hurried away so many of their companions, continually rising,
as if in a malicious endeavour to secure them also for their prey.
While strength remained, they cried and screamed for help, though even
as they did so, their hearts sank within them, for it seemed utterly
vain to hope that their shrieks would be heard above the awful clamour
of the winds and waves. Now and then they died into complete silence,
and then one of the number would shout for help, while the others
feebly, but with all their strength, seconded his endeavours. They
were half-frozen by the cold; and the heavy seas that washed over them
tore off their clothing, leaving them nearly naked. They made frantic
exertions to hold on, and resist the fury of the waves, but, as the
night wore slowly away, these endeavours quite exhausted the sufferers,
and left them almost prostrate.

One spectacle was particularly agonising. It has been mentioned that
Mrs. Dawson, one of the passengers, had declared before the vessel
started, that, if she could, she would leave it, and would not sail.
But her husband did not come in time, and she had therefore gone with
the rest. She was among the number of those who were in the fore-part
of the vessel, and which clung to the rock. She had with her two
children, a boy and a girl, aged respectively eight and eleven years.
She held them firmly, one by each hand, resolved to save them if a
mother's love could do it. But they were delicate, and could not
endure the continued buffeting of the waves. They were so beaten and
battered by being thrust to and fro against the rock that they both
died; but even after they were dead, Mrs. Dawson refused to believe it,
and still held them firmly by the hand. The mother's heart might have
broken quite had she known, but as it was she was eventually saved.

Scarcely less wonderful was the escape of a man named Donovan, one of
the firemen of the ill-fated vessel. He lay on the rock for three
hours in the greatest suffering, being beaten by the terrible waves as
they washed over him, stripping him by the force of their blows. But
all that time