The next instant all was confusion, and cries and lamentations filled the air. Captain Liddle was on deck barefooted, and all the passengers were there in their nightdresses, clinging to ropes and spars, praying and crying and wringing their hands. Great seas washed over the ship, drowning the cries for a brief time; the night was so dark that their true situation could not be discovered, and imagination added to their terrors and magnified them. The captain could do literally nothing; for the ship appeared to have been lifted on to the rocks, and kept bumping against them in its endeavors to get free. And yet there was sea all around them. Some of the passengers had sought shelter under the lee of the cuddy, among them the captain's wife, Mr. and Mrs. Pigeon and Little Emma, and Steven and Rachel Homebush. Many times during the night was the voice of Stephen Homebush heard, calling upon the Lord to save him; while his sister Rachel, braver than he, stood by his side, with a stern set face, in silence. The cheery laugh of Mrs. Pigeon was stilled, but she was not so overcome by terror as not to be a comfort to her husband and child; during the dark night those three clung together and comforted each other as well as they were able; while the captain, making his way from one group to another, bade them not lose heart; for the ship seemed to be keeping together, and when daylight came their condition might be found to be less desperate than it appeared.
"Besides," he whispered to the male passengers, "we have three or four rascals among the sailors, and for the sake of the women we must keep ourselves cool and self-possessed."
To his wife he said simply,--
"Well, Bessie, this is a bad job. I ought not to have allowed you to come with me."
"I would sooner be here with you, John," she said, kissing him, "than I would be at home in safety."
"Brave little heart," he whispered to himself as he walked away from her. "Yet I could bear it better if I were alone."
James Heartsease and Harry Wall kept together, as friends should, all through the night. They felt not a particle of fear; they thought it was very grand and very awful, and spoke in calm tones of what the morrow might bring.
"Don't think we shall see China, Jim," said Harry.
"Perhaps not. Hope no body will be hurt," was the reply. "What a grand painting this would make!"
A few minutes after Joshua had left Minnie, he came to the cuddy, where Mrs. Liddle had sought protection.