boat left
the ill-fated _Neptune_.

Never shall I forget the frightful sublimity of the spectacle presented by
that flaming ship, the sole object, save ourselves, discernible amidst the
vast and heaving darkness, if I may use the term, of the night and ocean,
coupled as it was with the dreadful thought that the heroic man to whose
firmness and presence of mind we all owed our safety was inevitably doomed
to perish. We had not rowed more than a couple of hundred yards when the
flames, leaping up every where through the deck, reached the rigging and
the few sails set, presenting a complete outline of the bark and her
tracery of masts and yards drawn in lines of fire! Captain Starkey, not to
throw away the chance he spoke of, had gone out to the end of the
bowsprit, having first let the jib and foresail go by the run, and was for
a brief space safe from the flames; but what was this but a prolongation
of the bitterness of death?

The boats continued to increase the distance between them and the blazing
ship, amidst a dead silence broken only by the measured dip of the oars;
and many an eye was turned with intense anxiety shoreward with the hope of
descrying the expected pilot. At length a distinct hail--and I felt my
heart stop heating at the sound--was heard ahead, lustily responded to by
the seamen's throats, and presently afterward a swiftly-propelled
pilot-boat shot out of the thick darkness ahead, almost immediately
followed by another.

"What ship is that?" cried a man standing in the bows of the first boat.

"The _Neptune_, and that is Captain Starkey on the bowsprit!"

I sprang eagerly to my feet, and with all the force I could exert,
shouted: "A hundred pounds for the first boat that reaches the ship!"

"That's young Mr. Mainwaring's face and voice!" exclaimed the foremost
pilot. "Hurra, then, for the prize!" and away both sped with eager vigor,
but unaware certainly of the peril of the task. In a minute or so another
shore-boat came up, but after asking a few questions, and seeing how
matters stood, remained, and lightened us of a portion of our living
cargoes. We were all three too deep in the water, the small boat
perilously so.

Great God! the terrible suspense we all felt while this was going forward.
I can scarcely bear, even now, to think about it. I shut my eyes, and
listened with breathless, palpitating excitement for the explosion that
should end all. It came!--at least I thought it did, and I spr