“It’s as dark as death.”
“God have mercy then upon his soul.”
I could hear every word of the conversation, as the excited tones of the speakers came borne to leeward upon the gale, but although I shouted back with desperate strength, I felt that my cries were unheard by my shipmates to windward. The distance between myself and the merchantman was meanwhile rapidly increasing, and every moment her dark figure became more and more shadowy. With that presence of mind which is soon acquired in a life of peril, I had begun to tread water the instant I had gone overboard; but I felt that my strength would soon fail me, and that I must sink, unaided, into the watery abyss. Oh! who can tell my feelings as I saw the figure of the merchantman gradually becoming more dim in the distance, and heard the voices of my friends, at first loud and distinct, dying away into indistinct murmurs. Alone on the ocean! My breath came quick; my heart beat wildly; I felt the blood rushing in torrents to my brain. The scene meanwhile grew darker around me. The faint hope I had entertained that the ship would be put about, gradually died away; and even while I looked, she suddenly vanished from my vision. I strained my eyes to catch a sight of her as I rose upon a billow. Alas! she was not to be seen. Was there then no hope? Young; full of life; in the heyday of love—oh! God it was too much to endure! I felt that my last hour had come. Already the waters seemed roaring through my ears, and strange, fantastic figures to dance before my eyes. In that hour every event of my life whirled through my memory! I thought of my childhood; of my mother in her weeds; of her prayers over her only child; and of the cold wintry day when they laid her in her grave, and told me that I was an orphan. I thought too of my boyhood; of my college life; of my early days at sea; of the eventful months which had just passed; of my hopes of a bright career or a glorious death, thus to be quenched forever; and of Beatrice, my own Beatrice, whom I was to see no more. Wild with the agony of that thought, I tossed my arms aloft, and invoked a dying blessing on her head. At that instant something came shooting past me, borne on the bosom of a towering wave. It was a lumbering chest, doubtless one of those thrown overboard from the merchantman. I grasped it with a desperate effort: I clambered up upon it; and as I felt its frail planks beneath me, a revulsion came over my bosom. The fisherman by his fireside, when the tempest howls around his dwelling, could not have felt more confident of safety than I now did, with nothing but this simple chest between me and the yawning abyss. Quick, gushing emotions swept through my bosom; I burst into tears; and lifting up my voice, there, alone, on the wide ocean, I poured forth my thanksgivings to God.
It was with no little difficulty I maintained my position on the chest, during the long hours which elapsed before the morning dawned. Now borne to the heavens, now hurried into the abyss below; now drenched with the surge, now whirled wildly onward, on the bosom of some wave, I passed the weary moments, in alternate efforts to maintain my hold, and ardent longings for the morning’s light. The gale, meantime, gradually diminished. At length the long looked-for dawn appeared, creeping slowly and ominously over the horizon, and revealing to my eager sight nothing but the white surges, the agitated deep, and the leaden colored sky on every hand. My heart sank within me. All through the weary watches of that seemingly interminable night, I had cheered my drooping hopes with the certainty of seeing the merchantman in the morning, and now, as I scanned the frowning horizon; and saw only that stormy waste on every hand, my heart once more died within me, and I almost despaired. Suddenly, however, I thought I perceived something flashing on the weather seaboard like the wing of a water-fowl, and straining my eyes in that direction, whenever I rose upon a wave, I beheld at length, to my joy, that the object was a sail. Oh! the overpowering emotions of that moment. The vessel was evidently one of considerable size, and coming down right toward me. As she approached I made her out to be a sloop of war, driving under close-reefed courses before the gale. Her hull of glossy black; her snowy canvass; and her trim jaunty finish were in remarkable contrast with the usual slovenly appearance of a mere merchantman. No jack was at her mast-head; no ensign fluttered at her gaff. But I cared not to what nation she belonged, in that moment of hope and fear. To me she was a messenger of mercy. I had watched her eagerly until she had approached within almost a pistol-shot of me, trembling momentarily lest she should alter her course. I now shouted with all my strength. No one, however, seemed to hear me. Onward she came, swinging with the surges, and driving a cataract of foam along before her bows. A look-out was idly leaning on the bowsprit. As the huge fabric surged down toward me another danger arose. I might be run down. Nerved to supernatural strength by the immanency of the peril, I raised myself half up upon my chest, and placing my hand to my mouth, shouted with desperate energy,
“Ahoy! a—a—hoy!”
“Hillo!” said the look-out, turning sharply in the direction of my voice.
“Ahoy! ship a—ho—o—y!”
“Starboard your helm,” thundered the seaman, discovering me upon my little raft, “heave a rope here—easy—easy—God bless you, shipmate,” and with the rapidity with which events are transacted in a dream, I was hoisted on board, and clasped in the arms of the warm-hearted old fellow, before he saw, by my uniform, that I was an officer. When he perceived this, however, he started back, and hastily touching his hat, said, with humorous perplexity,
“Beg pardon, sir—didn’t see you belonged aft——”
“An American officer in this extremity,” said a deep voice at my elbow, with startling suddenness, and as the speaker advanced, the group of curious seamen fell away from around me, as if by magic; while I felt, at once, that I was in the presence of the commanding officer of the ship.