le a light as the truth
would admit. The straightforward sailor, however, saw through it all.
He could not contain his indignation: after letting it explode in true
sailor fashion, he concluded with this piece of practical philosophy:
"Never mind, Hawser; 'tis the way of the world. I have always found it
so. As for gratitude, affection, disinterested kindness, and friendship,
'tis all a humbug! RELY ON YOURSELF. Fight the battle of life alone. If
you conquer, you will find friends, kind friends, disinterested friends.
Ha, ha, ha! Cheer up, my boy."

I still clung to a hope that there was some mistake, perhaps a blunder
on the part of the servant who delivered the message, and that I should
receive a note or a visit the next day which would set the matter right.
But neither note nor visit came. In a few days the schooner Mary left
Baltimore on the return to Newbern.

On the passage, the captain was testy, petulant, and unhappy. The
prophecy of Cochran had taken a stronger hold on his mind than he was
willing to acknowledge. I was called upon to read aloud chapters in the
Bible, and especially in the Book of Revelation, Knotty passages in the
pamphlet I was also required to read from time to time. But the oftener
they were read, and the more closely they were examined, the greater was
the puzzle, the more complete the mystification.

We reached Ocracoke in the evening, and the next morning had a fair wind
over the bar and across Pamlico Sound. This was the day on which
the dreaded prediction was to be fulfilled. The sun rose in a clear,
unclouded sky on the morning of that day, and its beams flashed
brilliantly and benignly, as with a gentle breeze from the northward we
entered the mouth of the River Neuse. There could not be a lovelier
day. Even Captain Thompson felt apparently relieved of his anxiety as he
looked abroad upon the beauties of nature and beheld no indications of
the day of doom. He saw no anger in the heavens; he heard no moans
from the distressed animals instinctively snuffing the near approach of
danger and death; he breathed no stifled and sulphurous atmosphere nor
witnessed any other sign of the near approach of a terrible calamity.
He even ventured to express an opinion that "the prophecy of that old
rascal Cochran would not prove true after all."

We reached Newbern in the afternoon, and found everybody gazing at the
heavens with eager looks, in which it would be difficult to say whether
fear or