age would avail him as nought to save the _Sea Hawk_. In this,
his last dire extremity, no craven fear filled his heart, and though for
his own life he cared not, he remembered that there were others whose
lives depended on him. To fly towards the stern before the vessel's
deck had become completely perpendicular, was the work of one moment,
while in the next he dragged Ada and Nina, who, almost unconsciously,
were holding on, by what were now the weather bulwarks, to the outside
of the vessel. In this task he was aided by Paolo, when the loud cries
of "The ship is sinking, the ship is sinking," uttered by the seamen,
and the roar of the tempest had aroused from his apathy, and who had
sprung to the side of the two beings most dear to him on earth, with the
thought rather of dying with them than of having even the power of being
of any assistance to them. The dreadful position in which they were
placed was sufficient to paralyse the heart of the bravest, and the
terror of the two girls was further increased by the shrieks of the
drowning wretches which reached their ears. They now clung with
convulsive energy to the quarter-rail, their feet partly supported by
the sill of the after-port, and though expecting instant death, they
still, with the impulse which the weakest as well as the strongest feel,
endeavoured to preserve their lives. Nina was almost unconscious, but
Ada Garden still retained her faculties unimpaired, and though she thus
more acutely perceived the dangers which surrounded her, she was better
able to exert herself for her preservation; yet, in that wild vortex of
water, and with a sinking ship alone to rest on, what hope was there?
Poor girl--in that moment how many thoughts passed rapidly through her
mind. Death to her could have few terrors, but life had many joys, pure
and bright, and even these, presented to her mind in all their glowing
colours, yet she tried to banish earthly things, to contemplate the life
eternal, towards which she was hastening, to offer up a prayer to Heaven
for herself, and for those who were being hurried to their doom with
her--she prayed as earnestly for herself as for them, for it did not
occur to her that she had less need of prayer than they, and who will
venture to pronounce that she had?--her advantages had been many, theirs
few. Yet, do all she could, that image of one so truly loved would
present itself to her eyes, and it added many an additional pang to her