ily bent on the chaos of waters, into which they were driving. The launch, the largest boat of the two, was cut loose from the "gripes," and the bustle and exertion of the moment rendered the crew insensible to the horror of the scene that surrounded them. But the loud, hoarse call of the cockswain, to "look out-secure yourselves!" suspended even their efforts, and at that instant the Ariel settled on a wave that melted from under her, heavily on the rocks. The shock was so violent as to throw all, who disregarded the warning cry, from their feet, and the universal quiver that pervaded the vessel was like the last shudder of animated nature. For a time long enough to breathe, the least experienced among the men supposed the danger to be passed; but a wave of great height followed the one that had deserted them, and, raising the vessel again, threw her roughly still farther on her bed of rocks, and at the same time its crest broke over her quarter, sweeping the length of her decks, with a fury that was almost resistless. The shuddering seamen beheld their loosened boat driven from their grasp, and dashed against the base of the cliffs, where no fragment of her wreck could be traced, at the receding of the waters. But the passing wave had thrown the vessel into a position which, in some measure, protected her decks from the violence of those that succeeded it.

"Go, my boys, go," said Barnstable, as the moment of dreadful uncertainty passed; 66 you have still the whaleboat, and she, at least, will take you nigh the shore; go into her, my boys; God bless you, God bless you all; you have been faithful and honest fellows, and I believe he will not yet desert you; go, my friends, while there is a full."

The seamen threw themselves, in a mass of human bodies, into the light vessel, which nearly sunk under the unusual burthen; but when they looked around them, Barnstable, and Merry, Dillon, and the cockswain, were yet to be seen on the decks of the Ariel. The former was pacing, in deep, and perhaps bitter melancholy, the wet planks of the schooner, while the boy hung, unheeded, on bis arm, uttering disregarded petitions to his commander, to desert the wreck. Dillon approached the side where

the boat lay, again and again, but the threatening countenances of the seamen as often drove him back in despair. Tom had seated himself on the heel of the bowsprit, where he continued, in an attitude of quiet resignation, returning no other answers to the loud and repeated calls of his shipmates, than by waving his hand toward the shore.

"Now hear me," said the boy, urging his request to tears; "if not for my sake, or for your own sake, Mr. Barnstable, or for the hopes of God's mercy, go into the boat, for the love of my cousin Katherine."

The young lieutenant paused in his troubled walk, and, for a moment, he cast a glance of hesitation at the cliffs; lut, at the next instant, his eyes fell on the ruin of his vesel, and he answered

66

Never, boy, never; if my hour has come, I will not shrink from my fate."

"Listen to the men, dear sir; the boat will be swamped along-side the wreck, and their cry is, that without you they will not let her go."

Barnstable motioned to the boat, to bid the boy enter it, and turned away in silence.

"Well," said Merry, with firmness, "if it be right that a lieutenant shall stay by a wreck, it must also be right for a midshipman; "shove off; neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will quit the vessel."

"Boy, your life has been intrusted to my keeping, and at my hands will it be required," said his commander, lifting the struggling youth, and tossing him into the arms of the seamen. 66 Away with ye, and God be with you; there is more weight in you, now, than can go safe to

land."

Still, the seamen hesitated, for they perceived the cockswain moving, with a steady tread, along the deck, and they hoped he had relented, and would yet persuade the lieutenant to join his crew. But Tom, imitating the example of his commander, seized the latter, suddenly, in his powerful grasp, and threw him over the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At the same moment, he cast the last of the boat from the pin that held it, and, lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in the tempest.

"God's will be done with me," he cried; "I saw the first timber of the Ariel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it torn out of her bottom; after which I wish to live no longer."

But his shipmates were swept far beyond the sounds of his voice, before half these words were uttered. All command of the boat was rendered impossible, by the numbers it contained, as well as the raging of the surf; and, as it rose on the white crest of a wave, Tom saw his beloved little craft for the last time; it fell into a trough of the sea, and in a few moments more its fragments were ground into splinters on the adjacent rocks. The cockswain still remained where he had cast off the rope, and beheld the numerous heads and arms that appeared rising, at short intervals, on the waves; some making powerful and well-directed efforts to gain the sands, that were becoming visible as the tide fell, and others wildly tossed, in the frantic movements of helpless despair. The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy, as he saw Barnstable issue from the surf, bearing the form of Merry in safety to the sands, where, one by one, several seamen soon appeared also, dripping and exhausted. Many others of the crew were carried, in a similar manner, to places of safety; though, as Tom returned to his seat on the bowsprit, he could not conceal, from his reluctant eyes, the lifeless forms, that were, in other spots, driven against the rocks, with a fury that soon left them but few of the outward vestiges of humanity.

Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole occupants of their dreadful station. The former stood, in a kind of stupid despair, a witness of the scene we have related; but, as his curdled blood began again to flow more warmly through his heart, he crept close to the side of Tom, with that sort of selfish feeling that makes even hopeless misery more tolerable, when endured in participation with

another.

"When the tide falls," he said, in a voice that betrayed the agony of fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, "we shall be able to walk to land."

"There was One, and only One, to whose feet the waters were the same as a dry deck," returned the cock

swain; 66 and none but such as have his power will ever be able to walk from these rocks to the sands." The old seaman paused, and, turning his eyes, which exhibited a mingled expression of disgust and compassion, on his companion, he added, with reverence-" Had you thought more of him in fair weather, your case would be less to be pitied in this tempest."

"Do you still think there is much danger?" asked Dillon.

"To them that have reason to fear death: listen! do you hear that hollow noise beneath ye?"

""Tis the wind, driving by the vessel!"

""Tis the poor thing herself," said the affected cockswain, "giving her last groans. The water is breaking up her decks, and, in a few minutes more, the handsomest model that ever cut a wave will be like the chips that fell from her timbers in framing!"

"Why, then, did you remain here?" cried Dillon, wildly.

"To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God," returned Tom: "these waves to me are what the land is to you; I was born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my grave."

"But I-1," shrieked Dillon, "I am not ready to die!— I cannot die !-I will not die !"

"Poor wretch !": muttered his companion;

66 you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster."

"I can swim," Dillon continued, eagerness, to the side of the wreck.

rushing, with frantic "Is there no billet

of wood, no rope, that I can take with me?”

"None; every thing has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!”

"God!" echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy; "I know no God! there is no God that knows me !"

"Peace!" said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to speak in the elements; "blasphemer, peace!"

The heavy groaning, produced by the water, in the timbers of the Ariel, at that moment, added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon, and he cast himself headlong into the sea.

The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places, favourable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one of these counter-currents, that was produced by the very rocks on which the schooner lay, and which the watermen call the "under-tow," Dillon had, unknowingly, thrown his person, and when the waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not overcome. He was a light and powerful swimmer, and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. The old seaman, who, at first, had watched his motions with careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a glance, and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice that was driven over the struggling victim, to the ears of his shipmates on the sands

"Sheer to port, and clear the under-tow! sheer to the southward!"

Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured by terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly yielded to the call, and gradually changed his direction, until his face was once more turned towards the vessel. The current swept him diagonally by the rocks, and he was forced into an eddy, where he had nothing to contend against but the waves, whose violence was much broken by the wreck. In this state he continued still to struggle, but with a force that was too much weakened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around him for a rope, but not one presented itself to his hands; had gone over with the spars, or been swept away by the waves. At this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of the desperate Dillon. Calm, and inured to hor rors, as was the veteran seaman, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow, as if to exclude the look of despair

all