t.

I spent that night with the irons heavy upon my wrists,
And my wife lay dead quite near me. I beat with my fettered fists,
Beat at my prison panels, and then--O God!--and then
I heard the shrieks of women and the tramp of hurrying men.

I heard the cry, "Ship afire!" caught up by a hundred throats,
And over the roar the captain shouting to lower the boats;
Then cry upon cry, and curses, and the crackle of burning wood,
And the place grew hot as a furnace, I could feel it where I stood.

I beat at the door and shouted, but never a sound came back,
And the timbers above me started, till right through a yawning crack
I could see the flames shoot upward, seizing on mast and sail,
Fanned in their burning fury by the breath of the howling gale.

I dashed at the door in fury, shrieking, "I will not die!
Die in this burning prison!"--but I caught no answering cry.
Then, suddenly, right upon me, the flames crept up with a roar,
And their fiery tongues shot forward, cracking my prison door.

I was free--with the heavy iron door dragging me down to death;
I fought my way to the cabin, choked with the burning breath
Of the flames that danced around me like man-mocking fiends at play,
And then--O God! I can see it, and shall to my dying day.

There lay my Nell as they'd left her, dead in her berth that night;
The flames flung a smile on her features,--a horrible, lurid light.
God knows how I reached and touched her, but I found myself by her side;
I thought she was living a moment, I forgot that my Nell had died.

In the shock of those awful seconds reason came back to my brain;
I heard a sound as of breathing, and then a low cry of pain;
Oh, was there mercy in heaven? Was there a God in the skies?
The dead woman's lips were moving, the dead woman opened her eyes.

I cursed like a madman raving--I cried to her, "Nell! my Nell!"
They had left us alone and helpless, alone in that burning hell;
They had left us alone to perish--forgotten me living--and she
Had been left for the fire to bear her to heaven, instead of the sea.

I clutched at her, roused her shrieking, the stupor was on her still;
I seized her in spite of my fetters,--fear gave a giant's will.
God knows how I did it, but blindly I fought through the flames and the
wreck
Up--up to the air, and brought her safe to the untouched deck.

We'd a moment of life together,--a moment of life, the time
For one last word to each other,--'twas a moment supreme, s