'Give her another, you lubber-jam her into the wind—quick!'

'Into the wind it is, sir.'

Let me describe the scene. The sky to windward had entirely changed. Instead of the piles of soft rosy clouds last seen there, there was a long low bank of sky as black as night itself, above the level of which every now and then rolled up huge massy heads, folding and tumbling into each other, presenting to the eye the spectacle of a mountain of dense vapor struggling with a hurricane. The black mass continued to rise higher and higher, and was doubtless approaching us rapidly, but there was not a sound from it as yet, nor had it a glimmer of light to tell what a demon was shrouded in it. Presently, I saw dart out from the rift of one of the largest piles, a stream of zigzag flame, lighting up the whole sky a moment, then seeming to descend and spend its force in the ocean, followed after an interval of perhaps half a minute, by a low muttering sound which was absolutely frightful. Indeed, as that growl came booming over the waters, I felt my hat rise and the blood about my heart thicken and pain me. That flash seemed the signal for a general discharge; aud at that moment, the sky entered on one of those grand exhibitions sometimes scen at sea, when the clouds in the distance seemed lit up for a jubilee. Every fold of that sky seemed charged with electricity. It darted from one to another, now with a dazzling stream of white light, and now with a pale violet green, lacing and interlacing themselves backwards and forwards over the folds, until the whole portion of the heavens was braided over with broad bands of fire, while the sound was like one continued roar of heavy artillery.

Our ship itself, at this time, was absolutely becalmed. The sails, all that were out, viz. the jib, the square sail in the foretop, and the mizen, the last double reefed, hung loose in their places, and the vessel rolled and pitched in the successive troughs of the sea, entirely at their mercy.

There it comes at last!' growl'd an old tar at my side, and screaming like so many devils.'

I looked, and in the direction, the sea was in perfect agitation. The thunder still continued, but we could hear the wind likewise. The waves were tossed up one over the other, white and red by turns; and now and then their white tops seemed entirely cut off, and driven into the air. Whole sheets of water were thus taken up, and by the time the wind struck us, the sky was as white and feathery as before it was gloomy.

Our skipper was a real Yankee, and was prepared for it, but we had more than we wanted. Extra stay braces had been run up to each of the sails-two men were stationed at the wheel, while he himself stood by the companion ladder, watching the event and sternly giving his orders.

'Master coxswain!' roared the captain.

'Och! fait, and what would your honor be wantin of Pat Flanagin?' was the Irish answer.

'Wont she bear a bit of that foresail in the place of the jib? I fear me the first cat-paw will loose her bolt rigging.'

‹ Divil a bit, your honor, will ye be after wantin the foresail. The jib, your honor, 'll blow us to the divil, by my shoul! or I'm not the son of my mither, darlint!'

The wind struck us at the moment, and their voices were drowned in what followed. The ship bowed to the blast, like a wounded sea bird dropped into the water and trying to rise again, and her lee yard arms almost dipped themselves into the ocean; then gliding up into the wind, she seemed to shake herself for action, actually leaping from one wave to another, and shaking off the thick foam from her bows in sheets of silver.

Sad was it now for poor Jonathan, before mentioned. Hearing the roar of the tempest, he rushed up the gangway at the very moment the boom swept the deck, which, striking him somewhere about the shoulders, pitched him head over heels into the lee scuppers, where he lay kicking and splattering and choking, like a shad in shallow water.

The wind lulled a moment, then came on with redoubled fury, and then followed a scene indescribable. The second puff struck the vessel as it seemed to me, like a cannon shot, or another vessel jamm'd against us, or as if we had grounded. The jib stay gave way instantly; and, leaving that sail slack, of course it was torn to rags in a moment; while the ship, having nothing now to keep her off, fetch'd full into the wind, bringing her other sails of course into the worst possible position for their safety. And what was feared happen'd-the sail in the foretop, brought flat to the wind, gave way with a crack like a pistol; and, blown clean from the bolt ropes, it went off into the dim night, like the spectral outline of one of Ossian's ghosts, careering on the tempest. Not so with the sail in the mizen-top-this was less fortunate. It was double reefed, and braced, and the canvass was fresh-she therefore held her own. But the spar to which she was fastened snapp'd short off at the crosstrees like a pipe stem, and down came the whole on the deck like a thunder clap.

'Ho! the waist there-jump, jump for your lives!' sounded from the forecastle.

'Och! your hon'-were the last words of the poor Irishman; for, striking the taught main chains to which he clung, their vibrations bounded him overboard in an instant. Poor fellow! his cries ring in my ears at this moment. He was a good swimmer, and as he rose on the top of the waves, he stretched both arms out to us with the most heart piercing shrieks, which, as we parted from him farther and farther, rose absolutely in howls of deprecation. Presently, a higher wave than the rest combed over him-one gurgling stifled cry, and he rose no more.

What happened next was of a different character. We could no longer keep the deck-of course we went below, and the gangways were locked. It was now so dark, we could see but little more than the length of the vessel; but I remember the sky above as doubly black, and so very near us it seemed we could almost touch it; and that the wind drove howling through the rigging like so many demons, whipping the remaining topmasts about like so many whip cords.

We were below in the darkness some two or three hours, the cabin lamp nearly extinguished by the water dashing through the sky-light, each of us holding on to what we could get hold of, and waiting the worst. Some of the passengers shrieked, some swore, and some prayed. Here and there a face, little bolder than the rest, put on something like a smile of daring; but it looked more like moon-shine on a tomb stone than any thing else you could see the coward at heart. Some turned in all standing' as the sailors say, thinking themselves safest there; and others lay about the floor, catching hold of chairs, tables, settees, and one thing and another, each as he could. For myself, I confess my fright, though apparently collected. Mary lay on my breast, as fragile as a May flower broken by the tempest wind, and almost as lifeless. Clinging round my neck, myself in turn clasping one of the masts, which came through the deck, and stood as a pillar for the cabin, we lay in silence, listening to the stunning roar from above, and expecting every moment to hear the water burst over us, and send us to the bottom.

I shan't forget that moment. All the acts of my life came thronging into my brain, and I seemed to live them all over again. Then it was I realized something of that mysterious faculty of the mind, its power of retention; and saw something of the manner in which a man shall be self-judged at the Judgment. I actually believe I had more single and separate thoughts at that moment, than I have had in years since then; and, smile as you may, Mr. Reader, I believe I had truer repentance.

At that moment there was a shock throughout the ship.

'She's filling!' sounded from above. The voice seemed like the trump of the arch-angel.

A cold chill ran through me, and Mary's frame quivered like an

One wild awful shriek burst from us all-darkness gathered over my eyes-I heard the waters tumble into the cabin, like fiends which had been too long debarred from their prey-and there was a choking, stifling sensation at my heart, that seemed hell itself. I shan't forget it.

From such awful excitement, there's but a short step to the ludicrous-we had it.

The lamp had been lit at the moment of the shock, and shed a dim light as the ship lurched leeward, tumbling cots, tables, chairs, chests and passengers in a heap together; and as the cry came she's sinking! followed by the shrieks of the passengers, the little Chinese, heretofore mentioned, lay pinned to the lee lockers by a chest jammed against his middle, where he lay kicking and scrabbling like a huge horse fly stuck in a tar barrel, and crying out with a face as red as Lucifer,

'Got dam!-Got dam!-Got dam !'—

While at the same moment, the tall Jonathan leapt from his birth, and shouted out,

'Where's my boots? where's my boots?' as if he could not think of going to the bottom without them.

As luck would have it, the captain made his appearance at this moment, saying, 'the storm was well nigh over.'

The words we had heard from the deck, it seemed, had only referred to the bending of a fresh sail.

The effect was electrical. Every one of us, man, woman and child, burst into a laugh, almost as loud as was our former shriek ; while the little Chinese swore louder than before, and Jonathan went tumbling up the hatchway, muttering through his long nose,

'Well, I guess that are thing aint polite nor nothing, no how.' Poor Jonathan! I pitied him ever afterwards, for he bore the name of Boots to the end of the voyage.

me.

I myself sought the deck soon after, and what a scene was before Could it be possible the loud storm had so lately been there? could it be possible the black sky had been rolling and folding over us? and that the lightning and thunder had been glimmering and surging from it, as if it embosomed all the demons of the universe? Where had it gone, then?

The sky above me was as blue as the eye of beauty, and stainless as the robe of the cherubim. The wind was low and balmy as if breathed from isles of spice and cinnamon, and only sent to us on ministerings of mercy. The moon hung soft and glimmering in the far ether, and around her the stars were gathered and shining in lambent beauty, like so many guardian spirits of the world. The high topped and frothy waves were gone, and in their places lay dimpling in the moon-beams, such only as break on a summer shore, filling the green groves with harmony. Sweeping along in easy undulations, rather in sport as it seemed than otherwise, the light reflected on their curling combs as they heaved to meet it, made them look like banks of topaz emerald and crystal moving by magic; while the softened feeling, creeping through the heart of the beholder, as this beauty lay before him, and he contrasted it with the scene an hour previous, and the low dashing sound they made came up into his ears, was well calculated to stir the heart, if beauty can do it, and give to it a pulsation and a power of joy, the memory of which is not soon to pass away.

I have, since then, seen lovely scenes; I have admired the stream the cataract and the ocean a thousand times, but have never been so lifted up by my feelings as at that moment, or felt with such full force, the harmony there is, between the beautiful in nature, and that which is in the depths of the human soul.

CHAPTER V.

'They talk of love and pleasure-but 'tis all

A tale of falsehood-life is made of gloom."-Percival.

Reader, this chapter has something darker in it than the last. The scenes just described for you, have rather led me off from the darker picture; and in living over, but in fancy, the three or four days I have described, I have forgotten myself, and wandered into something like happiness.

O, when I look back at those days—and what I have told you occurred years since-when I think of the soft and sunny star which at that period seemed rising on my existence, when I think how that voyage, with its inconsiderable variableness, succeeded in charming me off into something like an Elysium of feeling, I could pray for the same hallucination to come over me again, even if it were to be interrupted by the same catastrophe, which tore me from all I loved, and threw me back into the universe of my own unfettered passions.

They tell us of happiness in this world. Yes! but it is the lightning lacing and overlacing a thunder-cloud-lovely and destructive; for while we gaze at the beauty, a fire-bolt descends and scathes us.

But let me go on. I shall tire you but a moment. Nothing occurred of importance after the events recorded in the last chapter, for two or three days; until, late in the morning of the fourth, we found ourselves skimming lightly through the Bahamas, most of them so low as to look more like banks of fog than any thing else, till close upon them. The waters here were still, and blue, and beautiful; some of the shores looked white, as if thickly strown with sea shells; huge quantities of sea weed now and then obstructed our passage; and the beautiful birds of the tropics came about the ship, circled our masts for a moment, and then slowly betook themselves away. But the wind was fair, and our vessel, being fully rigged again, we soon left the islands behind us.

The next morning I was on deck before sunrise-our position was much changed. We were off the jutting cape, on the east end of Cuba; and though we had no day-light as yet, by the faint glimmer of the moon as she dipped her horn in the ocean, I saw height after height of green and waving groves, rising one above another as regularly as if laid down by the hand of art, and this beautiful scene backed by high and broad precipices, making it more beautiful by contrast, while a low line of white foam was faintly perceptible along the softly winding and indented curvature of the shore.