swayed desperately, while with the other I grasped the affrighted baby
to my breast.

Ada Greene and the old negro woman clung together, hanging to the same
cord of safety, flung to them, to all of us, by the hand of Christian
Garth.

The barrels strained and groaned, and broke from their fastenings; the
awning was wrenched from its mooring, and swept away; the bitter brine
broke over us and choked our cries; the anguish of death was upon us
without its submission. We struggled instinctively to breathe, to live;
we grappled desperately with circumstances; we fought against our doom.

Suddenly the sea dropped to rest--the storm was spent; a low, sighing,
soughing gale swept around our nucleus of despair, and the surging of
the sea was like a bitter funeral-wail. The air grew cold and chill; one
vast, pall-like cloud enveloped the whole face of the unpitying
heavens, that seemed literally "to press down upon our very faces like a
roof of black marble."

No moon, no stars, were visible; we had no light of any kind, nor could
we ascertain the damage done until the cold, gray morning broke in gloom
and rain upon us. Then it was made plain to us that our food had all
been swept overboard--together with six seamen and five of the
passengers. There remained on the raft only three shuddering women and a
little child--and a handful of weary and discouraged men, sustained and
led to a sense of duty by the dauntless master-spirit of one alone--the
presence of Christian Garth, indomitable through all hardships. So it
had fared with us for six-and-thirty hours of our experience on "our
floating grave."

We had been washed from our little platform, which ordinarily lifted us
above the lapping of the sea during the prevalence of the storm--and we
regained it now, glad to repose even on the sea-soaked mattresses bereft
of awning. By the mercy of God some glutinous sea-zoophytes had been
tangled among them, and by the help of the brine-soaked biscuit in my
pocket (crammed there, it may be remembered, as a precious hoard for a
time of dire necessity, on the morning of the fire, by the small,
cunning fingers of the sickly child), we breakfasted, or rather broke
our fast--we four, the child, the negress, Ada Greene, and I--and life
was aroused again in every breast by means of a briny morsel.

"A cup of coffee would not be amiss just now," said the girl, laughing,
"but the Lord knows we can wait."

There was a strange, bright light