"I can't pray, I can't pray!" cried Mrs. Lowe, sinking her face on her hands, while her long, loose black hair streamed wildly over her shoulders. Then suddenly changing her tone, and stretching out her arms, she exclaimed, "O God! Spare me, spare me yet a while; I will lead a different life, I will turn from my sins; mercy, mercy on a wretched sinner! Let not the door yet be shut; save me, save me from this terrible death!"
Minnie clung round her mother; the greater the danger, the greater the fear, the closer she clung! "We shall not be separated!" she gasped forth; and Mrs. Mayne, bending down, whispered in her ear, "'And who shall separate us from the love of Christ?' My precious one, He is with us now; He has power to subdue the fire, or to bear us safe through it to glory."
It was a strange and awful scene, and strange and wild were the mingling sounds that rose from the ship on fire. Shouting, shrieking, praying; the clank of the pump incessantly at work, voices giving hurried commands, the crackling of flame, the gurgle of water, the rushing of feet to and fro. Then—oh, blessed hope!—can that sudden, sharp clatter be indeed that of rain, pelting rain, against the window of the cabin, that dark window, which has only been lightened now and then by a terrible gleam from the fire?
"Rain, blessed rain!" exclaimed Mrs. Mayne, starting up. "Rain, rain!" repeated every joyful tongue; and then there was a momentary silence to listen to the clattering drops, as thicker and faster they fell, as if in answer to the fervent prayers that were rising from every heart. Surely never was shower more welcome!
"Oh, God sends the rain!" exclaimed Minnie. "There's no red glare now to be seen. It is pelting, it is pouring; it comes down like a stream!" And even as the words were on her tongue, a loud, long, glad cheer from above gave welcome tidings that the fire was subdued.
"Thank God, ladies, the danger is over," said the captain, at the door. He was now, for the first time, able to leave his post-upon deck, to relieve the terrors of his passengers below.
Then was there a strange revulsion of feeling amongst those who had lately been almost convulsed with terror. Strangers embraced one another like sisters, sobbing, laughing, congratulating each other; the passengers seemed raised at once from the depth of misery to the height of rapture. This, also, soon subsided, and it became but too evident that, with some, gratitude was almost as short-lived as fear, and that God's warning made no more lasting impression on the heart than the paddle-wheels on the water—creating a violent agitation for a few minutes, leaving a whitened track for a brief space longer, which, melting away from view, all became as it had been before.
Mrs. Lowe was very angry at the carelessness which had occasioned her such a fright; she was angry with the captain, the sailors, the passengers; in short, angry with every one but herself.
"I'll never set my foot in a steamer again! As if all the discomfort were not enough to drive one out of one's wits, one is not left to sleep for a moment in peace. Ah, tiresome child!" she exclaimed, almost fiercely, turning upon poor Jemima, "What have you done! Trampled your new hat, crushed the feather to bits!"
Jemima, who had by no means recovered from the shock of the alarm, made no attempt to reply to her mother, but sat crying in the corner of her berth. Mrs. Lowe, declaring that she would stay no longer to be stifled down below, made her way up to the deck, though the first faint streak of dawn was but beginning to flush the sky.