as, lighting sea and sky--a mighty holocaust; the
roar of a great conflagration; the end of a monstrous dream. And I
thought of another fire and another face--the face of Martin Hall, who
had seen the finger of Almighty God in his mission; and I said, "His
work is done!"

But Black, clinging to the dinghy, wept as a man stricken with a great
grief, and he cried so that the coldest heart might have been moved--

"My ship, my ship! Oh God, my ship!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

A PAGE IN BLACK'S LIFE.

I know not whether it was the amazing spectacle of the nameless ship's
end, or the sudden coming down of night, that kept attention from our
boat when the great vessel had sunk; but those on the ironclads, which
were at least two miles from us when we put off, seemed to be unaware
that any boat from the ship lived; and, although they steamed for some
hours in our vicinity, they saw nothing of us as we lay in the plunging
dinghy. When night fell, and with it what breeze that had been blowing,
we lost sight of them altogether, and knew for the first time the whole
terror of the situation. Black had indeed recovered much of his old
calm, and drank long draughts of champagne; but he sat silent, and
uttered no word for many hours after the end of that citadel which had
given him such great power. As for the little boat, it was a puny
protection against the sweeping rollers of the Atlantic, and I doubt
not that we had been drowned that very night if a storm of any moment
had broken upon us.

About midnight a thunderstorm got up from the south, and the sea,
rising somewhat with it, wetted us to the skin. The lightning, terribly
vivid and incessant, lighted up the whole sea again and again, showing
each the other's face, the face of a worn and fatigue-stricken man. And
the rain and the sea beat on us until we shivered, cowering, and were
numbed; our hands stiffened with the salt upon them, so that we could
scarce get the warming liquor to our lips. Yet Black held to his
silence, moaning at rare intervals as he had moaned when the great ship
sank. It was not until the sun rose over the long swell that we slept
for an hour or more; and after sleep we were both calmer, looking for
ships with much expectation, and that longing which the derelict only
may know. The Captain was then very quiet, and he gazed often at me
with the expression I had seen on his face when he saved me from his
men.

"Boy," he said, "look well at the sun, le