“Oh, for daylight! oh, Heaven, for daylight!” was the frequently aspirated prayer in the dark cabin. And, “Oh, for daylight! oh, God, for daylight!” was the unuttered prayer on the quivering deck.
CHAPTER X.
THE ROCKS.
All things have an end. That awful night passed at last. Daylight came, slowly enough, through the heaped black clouds that rolled upon the heaving waves below and reached unknown heights in the sky above.
So darkly and gloomily came the morning, that it seemed not so much the dawning of the day as the fading of the black darkness. Night grew paler in the cabin, and the scared inmates could see in the waning darkness the wan faces of their companions rising up and down with the tossing of the ship.
And soon after daylight came that startling cry from the man on the lookout—that cry which is so often a sound of rapture or of despair, because it is a herald of life or of death. Ah, Heaven! it was now a knell of doom.
“Land ho!”
“Where away?”
“On her lee bows!”
“Thank Heaven!” fervently breathed Mrs. Ely, to whom the words conveyed no other idea than that of a good landing place, where they could all leave the dreadful ship, and go on shore in safety.
Mrs. Breton lifted her prostrate head, and ventured to draw a long breath.