clinging with your father to one of the masts. The head of the mast was resting on a rock. We made our way along it; I believed that others were following; but just as we reached the rock the mast was carried away, and he and I found that we alone had escaped.
“The seas rose up foaming around us, and every moment we expected to be washed away. Though we knew many were perishing close around us we had no means of helping them. All we could do was to cling on and try and save our own lives.
“‘I hope we shall get back home yet, Michael,’ I said, wishing to cheer your father, for he was more down-hearted than usual.
“‘I hope so, Paul, but I don’t know; God’s will be done, whatever that will is. Paul, you will meet me in heaven, I hope,’ he answered, for he was a Christian man. ‘If I am taken, you will look after Mary and my boy,’ he added. Again I promised him, and I knew to a certainty that he would look after my Nelly, should he be saved and I drowned.
“When the morning came at last scarcely a timber or plank of the wreck was to be seen. What hope of escape had either of us? The foaming waters raged around, and we were half perished with cold and hunger. On looking about I found a small spar washed up on the rock, and, fastening our handkerchiefs together, we rigged out a flag, but there was little chance of a boat putting off in such weather and coming near enough to see it. We now knew that we were not far off the Land’s End, on one of two rocks called The Sisters, with the village of Senum abreast of us.
“Your father and I looked in each other’s faces; we felt that there was little hope that we should ever see our wives and infants again. Still we spoke of the promise we had made each other—not that there was any need of that, for we neither of us were likely to forget it.
“The spring tides were coming on, and though we had escaped as yet, the sea might before long break over the rock and carry us away. Even if it did not we must die of hunger and thirst, should no craft come to our rescue.
“We kept our eyes fixed on the distant shore; they ached with the strain we put on them, as we tried to make out whether any boat was being launched to come off to us.
“A whole day passed—another night came on. We did not expect to see the sun rise again. Already the seas as they struck the rock sent the foam flying over us, and again and again washed up close to where we were sitting.
“Notwithstanding our fears, daylight once more broke upon us, but what with cold and hunger we were well-nigh dead.