become, that our young sailor more than
once bent forward to listen. While under this delusion, the body rose,
with the arms stretched upwards. The air was filled with a sheet of
streaming fire, while the ocean and the heavens glowed with one glare of
intense and fiery red. Notwithstanding the precaution of the 'Skimmer of
the Seas,' the chest was driven from its place, and those by whom it was
held were nearly precipitated into the water. A deep, heavy detonation
proceeded as it were from the bosom of the sea, which, while it wounded
the ear less than the sharp explosion that had just before issued from the
gun, was audible at the distant capes of the Delaware. The body of Trysail
sailed upward for fifty fathoms, in the centre of a flood of flame, and,
describing a short curve, it came towards the raft, and cut the water
within reach of the captain's arm. A sullen plunge of a gun followed, and
proclaimed the tremendous power of the explosion; while a ponderous yard
fell athwart a part of the raft, sweeping away the four petty officers of
Ludlow, as if they had been dust driving before a gale. To increase the
wild and fearful grandeur of the dissolution of the royal cruiser, one of
the cannon emitted its fiery contents while sailing in the void.

The burning spars, the falling fragments, the blazing and scattered canvas
and cordage, the glowing shot, and all the torn particles of the ship,
were seen descending. Then followed the gurgling of water, as the ocean
swallowed all that remained of the cruiser which had so long been the
pride of the American seas. The fiery glow disappeared, and a gloom like
that which succeeds the glare of vivid lightning, fell on the scene.

Chapter XXXIII.

"--Please you, read."

Cymbeline.

"It is past!" said the 'Skimmer of the Seas,' raising himself from the
attitude of great muscular exertion, which he had assumed in order to
support the mess-chest, and walking out along the single mast, towards the
spot whence the four seamen of Ludlow had just been swept. "It is past!
and those who are called to the last account, have met their fate in such
a scene as none but a seaman may witness; while those who are spared, have
need of all a seaman's skill and resolution for that which remains!
Captain Ludlow, I do not despair; for, see, the lady of the brigantine has
still a smile for her servitors!"

Ludlow, who had followed the steady and daring free-trader to the place