lm. He was in the act of stretching out his arms to the centre of the
ship, whence a cloud of smoke was billowing upwards in voluminous
surges: the passengers turned pale: the sailors began to swear:
"It's all over!" they shouted: "old Davy has us. So huzza! let's
have some sport as long as he leaves us any day-light." Amidst an
uproar of voices the majority of the crew rushed below; stove in the
brandy-casks; drank every thing they could find; and paid no sort of
regard to the clamorous outcries of the passengers for help! help!
except that here and there a voice replied--Help? There _is_ no help:
Old Nick will swallow us all; so let _us_ swallow a little comfort
first.

The master of the vessel, who retained most presence of mind, hurried
on deck. With his sabre he made a cut at the ropes which suspended the
boat: and, as he passed Bertram, the young man already mentioned (who
in preparation for the approaching catastrophe had buckled about his
person a small portmanteau and stood ready to leap into the boat), with
a blow of his fist he struck him overboard. All this was the work of a
minute.

Scarcely had the young man been swept to a little distance by a wave,
when the ship blew up with a tremendous crash. The shattered ruins were
carried aloft to an immense elevation: Bertram was stunned by the
explosion: and, upon recovering his senses, he saw no object upon the
surface of the waters: the ship had vanished; and nothing remained but
a few spars floating in the offing.

Urgent distress throws us back upon our real and unfanciful wants.
In the peril of the moment Bertram forgot all the prospects, sad or
gay--painful or flattering, which had occupied his thoughts on board
the ship; and exerted his utmost force to swim through the tumbling
billows to a barrel at a little distance which appeared and disappeared
at intervals, sometimes riding aloft, and sometimes hidden by the
waves. At the moment when his powers began to fail him, he succeeded in
reaching the barrel.--But scarcely had he laid hold of the outermost
rim with both hands, when the barrel was swayed down from the opposite
side. A shipwrecked man, whose long wet hair streamed down over his
face, fixed his nails, as it were the talons of a vulture, on the hoops
of the barrel; and by the energy of his gripe--it seemed as though he
would have pressed them through the wood itself.--He was aware of his
competitor: and he shook his head wildly to clear the hair