ave
themselves, if there had been any means of doing so, and they went down
with the wreck. After a hard struggle for life, they perished.

Harvey Barth alone was spared, and he rested on the flat rock in the
ravine till his wasted breath and meagre strength were regained. Then he
continued his weary ascent till he reached the summit of the cliffs,
where he saw the boat made fast to the wreck, and the mate and passenger
clinging to the forestay. In the next glare of the lightning, with a
thrill of horror, he saw the hulk topple over and disappear in the mad
waves.

Harvey Barth, the sick man, was the only one of the dozen persons on
board of the Waldo who was left alive in half an hour after the
hurricane burst upon her; and she was not the only vessel that foundered
or was dashed upon the rocks in that terrific storm, nor the only one
from whose crew only a single life was spared. The tempest and the
lightning had done their work; and when it was done, the dark clouds
rolled away, the lightning glared no more, the winds subsided, and the
sea was calm again. Later in the night, the wind came cold and fresh
from the north-west, and swept away from the narrow beach the wounded
body of Burns, and nearly every vestige of the wreck. The rising sun of
the next morning revealed hardly a trace of the terrible disaster.

CHAPTER III.

"HARVEY BARTH, HIS DIARY."

Harvey Barth stood on the high cliff and wept; not in a poetical sense,
but cried like a little child, and the hot tears burned on his cold,
thin pale cheeks. Captain 'Siah had always used him well; the rough mate
had been kind to him; and the seamen, most of whom, like himself, were
farmers' sons, had been friendly during the three months they were
together. Even the passenger often seated himself in the galley to talk
with him, as he smoked his pipe. Now they were all gone. So far as
Harvey knew, every one of them, from the captain to the humblest seaman,
had perished, either by the bolt from the clouds or in the mad waters.
It was barely possible that the mate or passenger had escaped from the
wreck on which they had taken refuge, as they had the whale-boat with
them.

Harvey Barth, who had often told his shipmates that he had not much
longer to live, was the only one saved from the whole ship's company. It
seemed to him very strange that he should be spared while so many
stronger men had been suddenly swept away. He dared not believe that any
one else