"Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave,
The ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave."
Falconer.
On the twenty-ninth of October, the anchors were loosened from their muddy beds; a light land wind fanned us out of the harbor, and with a white silver moon, we began our dreary march towards Cape Horn.
The following night the ship was dashing over the seas eleven miles the hour. The bell had just struck eight, watch set, and the topmen came dancing gaily down the rigging, here and there one, with a pea jacket snugly tied up and held by the teeth, preparatory to a four hours' snooze in the hammocks, when a moment after the cry, "Look out, Bill!—Overboard!—Man overboard!" was cried from the main rigging, and amid the bustle that ensued, the voice of the poor drowning wretch was heard in broken exclamations of agony, as the frigate swept swiftly by. Down went the helm, and sails were taken in as she came up to the wind, but by the strangest fatality, both life buoys were with difficulty cast adrift, and even then the blue lights did not ignite. A boat was soon lowered, and sent in the vessel's wake. An hour passed in the search, without hearing or seeing ought but the rude winds and breaking waves; and this is the last ever known of poor Bill de Conick.
He struck the channels from a fall of twenty feet up the rigging, and was probably either encumbered by heavy clothing, or too much injured to be able to reach the buoys.
Friday, too, the day of all others in our superstitious calendar for those "who go down to the sea in ships:" even amid a large crew, where many, if not all, are utterly reckless of life, an incident of this nature sheds a momentary gloom around, and serves to make many reflect, that the same unlucky accident might have wrapped any other in the same chilling shroud. There are few more painful sights in the world than to behold the imploring looks, with outstretched hands, of a fellow being,
—"When peril has numbed the sense and will,
Though the hand and the foot may struggle still—"
silently invoking help, when all human aid is unavailing—before the angry waves press him below the surface, to a sailor's grave. Aye, there can be no more dreadful scenes to make the strong man shudder than these. Yet it seems a wise ordination in our natures, that the sharp remembrance of these painful incidents is so rapidly dispelled. This very characteristic of the sailor, his heedless indifference to the future, in a great degree makes up his measure of contentment in all the toils and dangers that beset his course, unconscious that time,