waters. There was no moon, but the sky was cloudless, and the stars
were out, in solemn and mysterious beauty. Every thing seemed
preternaturally still, and I felt oppressed by a strange sense of
loneliness; I looked round in vain for some familiar object, the sight
of which might afford me relief. But far, far as the eye could reach,
to the last verge of the horizon, where the gleaming sapphire vault
closed down upon the sea, stretched one wide, desolate, unbroken
expanse. I seemed to be isolated and cut off from all living things:

"Alone--alone, all, all alone!
Alone on the wide, wide sea;
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be."

And there was something in this feeling, and in the universal,
death-like silence, that was unutterably awful. I tried to pray--to
think of God as present even there--to think of Him as "Our Father"--as
caring for and loving his creatures--and thus to escape the desolating
sense of loneliness that oppressed me. But it was in vain; I could not
pray: there was something in the scene that mocked at faith, and seemed
in harmony with the dreary creed of the atheist. The horrible idea of a
godless universe came upon me, bidding me relinquish, as a fond
illusion, the belief in a Heavenly Father,--

"Who sees with equal eye, as Lord of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall."

Language cannot express the desolation of that thought.

Then the scene changed once more. We were again on board the ship, and
in the power of the enraged mutineers, about to suffer whatever their
vengeance might impel them to inflict. Poor Spot was swinging, a livid
corpse, at one of the yard-arms. Browne was bound to the main-mast,
while Luerson and his fiendish crew were exhausting their ingenuity in
torturing him. The peculiar expression of his mild, open countenance,
distorted by pain, went to my heart, and the sound of that familiar and
friendly voice, now hoarse and broken, and quivering with agony,
thrilled me with horror. As he besought his tormentors to kill him at
once, I thought that I kneeled to Luerson, and seconded the entreaty--
the greatest favour that could be hoped from him. The rest of us were
doomed to walk the plank. Morton was stern and silent; Max pale and
sorrowful; his arm was round my neck, and he murmured that life was
sweet, and that it was a hard and terrible thing to die--to die so!
Arthur, calm and collected, cheered and encouraged us; and