d this disaster It appeared as if the
elements themselves were appeased by their work, and something like a
momentary lull in the awful rushing of the winds might have been fancied.
Wilder sprang to the side of the vessel, and distinctly beheld the
victims, who still clung to their frail support. He even saw Earing waving
his hand, in adieu, with a seaman's heart, and like a man who not only
felt how desperate was his situation, but one who knew how to meet his
fate with resignation. Then the wreck of spars, with all who clung to it,
was swallowed up in the body of the frightful, preternatural-looking mist
which extended on every side of them, from the ocean to the clouds.

"Stand by, to clear away a boat!" shouted Wilder, without pausing to think
of the impossibility of one's swimming, or of effecting the least good, in
so violent a tornado.

But the amazed and confounded seamen who remained needed not instruction
in this matter. No man moved, nor was the smallest symptom of obedience
given. The mariners looked wildly around them, each endeavouring to trace,
in the dusky countenance of the other, his opinion of the extent of the
evil; but not a mouth was opened among them all.

"It is too late--it is too late!" murmured Wilder to himself; "human skill
and human efforts could not save them!"

"Sail, ho!" Nighthead muttered at his elbow, in a voice that teemed with a
species of superstitious awe.

"Let him come on," returned his young Commander bitterly; "the mischief is
ready finished to his hands!"

"Should yon be a mortal ship, it is our duty to the owners and the
passengers to speak her, if a man can make his voice heard in this
tempest," the second mate continued, pointing, through the haze at the dim
object that was certainly at hand.

"Speak her!--passengers!" muttered Wilder, involuntarily repeating his
words. "No; any thing is better than speaking her. Do you see the vessel
that is driving down upon us so fast?" he sternly demanded of the watchful
seaman who still clung to the wheel of the "Caroline."

"Ay, ay, sir," was the brief, professional reply.

"Give her a birth--sheer away hard to port--perhaps he may pass us in the
gloom, now we are no higher than our decks. Give the ship a broad sheer, I
say, sir."

The same laconic answer as before was given and, for a few moments, the
Bristol trader was seen diverging a little from the line in which the
other approached; but a second glance assured Wilder