"Dar's a gun in dat thunder!"
The next flash of lightning showed a vessel close to the shore, coming rapidly in on the southeaster, and her gun was fired again, and feeble hailing was heard; but the storm now broke all at once, and a wave threw Samson to the ground and nearly carried Virgie back with it to the boiling sea; but the faithful old man fought for her, and she ran at his side, uttering no complaint, till once, as they stopped to get breath, and the heavenly fire drew into sight every foot, as it seemed, of that vast ocean, cannonading it also with majestic artillery, the girl sighed,
"Freedom is beautiful!"
"Oh, Virgie," Samson answered, covering her with his own coat, "if I could buy you free, pore chile, I'd a-mos' go into slavery to save you from dis night."
"I can die in there," Virgie said, pointing to the waves; "they must not catch me."
A wail came out of the storm, so close before that it hushed them both, and the lightning lifted upon their eyes a stranding vessel, so close, it seemed, that they could touch it, and she was full of people, hallooing, but not in any intelligible tongue.
As the black night fell upon this magic-lantern sketch they heard a crash of wave and wood, and falling spars and awful shrieks, and, when the next vivid flash of lightning came, nothing was visible but floating substance, and spluttering cries came out of the bosom of the sea, and a black man, flung, as if out of a cannon, upon a wave that drenched these wanderers, struck the ground at their feet, and looked into Samson's eyes as the convulsion of death seized his chest and feet.
Before they could speak to each other, the beach was full of similar corpses, a moment before alive as themselves, and every one was naked and black.
"It's a slave-ship, foundered yer," cried Samson.
He caught at a yawl-boat driving past him, in the many things that drifted around their feet, and Virgie saw painted upon its bow the word "Ida."