For what purpose were they doing this? I needed not ask the question. I saw that there was wind blowing against the canvas. I felt the breeze upon my cheeks.
I looked back to the water. I saw that the raft was moving rapidly through it. There was a rushing along the edge of the timbers—there was froth where the spars were cleaving the sea. I looked for the swimmers. I saw their round heads and grim faces, but no longer around the raft—they were already in its wake, every moment falling further away. Merciful heaven! at least from that terrible fate were we saved.
I kept gazing behind. I still saw the dark heads above the water. I could no longer distinguish their faces. I thought they had turned them away. I thought they were swimming back toward the blazing barque.
They may have turned back, but with what hope? They could have had none; though despair may have driven them in that direction as well as any other.
It was a sad beacon to guide them; nor did it serve them long. They could not have got near it—not half-way—before that event, so dreaded by Brace and myself, came to pass. The crisis had at length arrived.
Wherever the powder had been kept, it was long before the fire had reached it—far longer than we had expected; but the searching flames found it at last, and the concussion came.
It was a terrific explosion, that resembled not the report of a cannon, but a hundred guns simultaneously fired. Bed masses were projected far up into the heavens, and still farther out to the sea, hurtling and hissing as they fell back into the water. A cloud of fiery sparks hung for some minutes over the spot; but these at length came quivering down, and, as soon as they reached the surface, were observed no more. These sparks were the last that was seen of the Pandora.
The crew at this moment were awed into silence. There was silence far over the sea; yet for nearly another hour that silence was at intervals broken by the death-shriek of some exhausted swimmer or some victim of the ravening shark.
The breeze still continued to blow, the raft moved on, and long before morning the Pandora’s crew were carried far away from the scene of the terrible tragedy.