They were safe at last! The four dropped their feet and found them resting upon smooth packed sand, and wading a few rods they all stood upon dry earth. Terror, as he shook his shaggy coat and rubbed his nose against his young masters seemed not the least joyful of the party.
"Isn't this grand!" exclaimed Elwood. "When did the ground feel better to your feet? Saved from fire and water!"
"Our first duty is to thank God!" said Mr. Yard reverently. "He has chosen us out of the hundreds that have perished as special objects of his mercy. Let us kneel upon the shore and testify our gratitude to Him."
All sunk devoutly upon their knees and joined the merchant, as in a low, impressive tone he returned thanks to his Creator for the signal mercy he had displayed in bringing them safely through such imminent perils.
"Now, what is to be done next?" inquired Mr. Yard, as they arose to their feet and looked around them. "The first thing I should like to do is to procure a suit of clothes, and I hope I shall be able to do it without stripping any of the dead bodies that will soon wash ashore."
"What is the naad?" asked Tim O'Rooney. "Baing that it's a warrum summer night, and there saams to be few in the neighborhood that is likely to take exsaptions to your costume."
"But day is breaking!" replied the merchant, pointing across the low, rocky country to a range of mountains in the distance, whose high, jagged tops were blackly defined against the sky that was growing light and rosy behind them.
"Yes, it will soon be light," said Howard. "See! there are persons along the shore that have come down to the wreck?"
"They are some of the passengers that have managed to reach land. I will go among them and see whether any of them have any clothing to sell," laughed Mr. Yard as he moved away.
As the sun came up over the mountains it lit up a dreary and desolate scene. Away in the distance, until sky and earth mingled into one, stretched the blue Pacific, not ridged into foam and spray like the boisterous Atlantic, but swelling and heaving as if the great deep was a breathing monster. A few fragments of blackened splinters floating here and there were all that remained to show where a few hours before the magnificent steamer, surcharged with its living freight, so proudly cut the waters on her swift course toward the Golden Gate.