“Well, we found it was indeed a pretty sad case. The tempest was not so furious as it had been, but our brig was a complete wreck. Nothing was left of the foremast above the foretop, and the spars and rigging of the mainmast had all disappeared, and only a stump of the mast was left. The jib-boom was carried away and bowsprit sprung. The galley and poop were stove, too. We found there was four feet of water in the hold, and our water and provisions were nearly all spoilt. And, to crown all, we were drifting directly toward a reef, about two miles off, where the surf was breaking in a terrible fashion. Wasn’t that a pretty fix? The first thing the captain did was to try to mend the rudder; but we couldn’t do anything with it. Then he said we must abandon the brig or we should be dashed to pieces on the rocks.
“We had lost a small boat in the gale, but, luckily for us, we had two larger ones that were safe. We got these ready, and stowed away provisions, water, sails, and compasses, in them. Five of us then got into one of the boats, by the captain’s orders. The mate took charge of it, and the captain told him what course to take. The captain and the rest of the crew, and the three passengers that were on board,—nine in all,—took the other boat, which was a life-boat. Our boat came near getting swamped when we launched it, and, in fact, we expected to be dashed to pieces before we got clear of the brig. But, as good luck would have it, both boats got off from the wreck without losing a man.”
“Not good luck, my son,” said Mrs. Preston, “but good Providence; the hand of God was certainly in it.”
“Well, call it good Providence,—it’s all the same,” replied Jerry.
“No, no, don’t say so,” replied his mother, with a reproving look and tone; for she was pained to hear him speak so lightly of the Almighty One who had delivered him from his perils.
“As I was saying,” resumed Jerry, “both boats got clear of the wreck. We didn’t know exactly where we were, but we thought we were not within two or three hundred miles of the coast. The reef the brig was driving upon was a barren island. It was very rocky, and the cliffs rose up, almost perpendicular, nearly two hundred feet, I should think. There was no chance to land, that we could see, even if the weather had been calm. The brig drifted toward the island very fast after we left her, and the last we saw of her, she was thumping upon the rocks, and just ready to go to pieces.
“The weather cleared off finely after sunrise, and the change in the wind made the sea a good deal smoother, so that we could manage the boats pretty well. We saw two or three vessels the day before the hurricane, and we kept a sharp lookout, in hopes we should fall in with one of them. We pulled toward land, and kept within sight of the captain’s boat all that day; but the next morning we could see nothing of her, although we took the course the captain gave us. We concluded, at last, that they had gone down; but it seems they were picked up by a ship bound for New Orleans, three days after the wreck, and brought home. We didn’t know anything about that, however, till we got to Boston. And it seems, too, they thought we had gone down; for they say the ship cruised around a day or two, hunting after us, and they finally concluded we had gone to Davy Jones’s locker.”
