As the night advanced the tempest increased in fury; the wind blew in fiercer blasts, howling and shrieking around the ship, as if all the accursed spirits in Tartarus had been let loose; had there been a square of canvas up, it must have been split to pieces; the very masts were bent like reeds. “Alps on Alps” of waves arose and broke in death-dealing blows upon the deck; scarcely any hour passed in which some unfortunate seaman was not torn from his holdings and swept overboard, and the utmost precautions taken could not prevent the waves rushing into the cabin, to the unutterable horror of Mrs. Breton, who could only gasp and sob, while even Mrs. Ely exclaimed in affright: “We shall be drowned! Oh, my Heavens, we shall be drowned! drowned here in the cabin like blind kittens in a tub!” “Ah, thin, bad luck to the kittens. I wish meself they were drowned entirely, for sure it was thimselves as brought this hurricane upon us, as the saymen foretold!” exclaimed Judith, the stewardess, who had only heard, in the din, something about drowning and kittens. At every wave that came rushing in, Mrs. Breton went into a spasm, and Mrs. Ely cried out for mercy, though before the words had left her lips, the wave had left the cabin. At last one, heavier than any that had preceded it broke into the cabin, prostrating all its inmates, and then rushed out again. “We are lost! Heaven and earth, we are lost!” cried Mrs. Ely, as soon as she could get her breath. “Ah, be calm, we are immortal spirits; we cannot be lost! Think of that, and brace yourself to bear whatever comes! At worst it will be but a stormy passage to the other world!” said Miss Conyers, earnestly. But her companions were unnerved beyond all hope of being strengthened. And still, as the awful night deepened, the wind blew in more furious gusts, bending the masts like rods, the sea rose in higher waves, beating the ship with mortal blows; the thunder rolled in louder peals, and the lightning blazed with a more deadly glare. The ship was driven furiously through the darkness, and clear out of her course, and no one on board had any distinct idea of where she was. So the night of horrors wore on. “Oh, for daylight! oh, Heaven, for daylight!” was the frequently aspirated prayer in the dark cabin. And, “Oh, for daylight! oh, God, for daylight!” was the unuttered prayer on the quivering deck. CHAPTER X. THE ROCKS. All things have an end. That awful night passed at last. Daylight came, slowly enough, through the heaped black clouds that rolled upon the heaving waves below and reached unknown heights in the sky above. So darkly and gloomily came the morning, that it seemed not so much the dawning of the day as the fading of the black darkness. Night grew paler in the cabin, and the scared inmates could see in the waning darkness the wan faces of their companions rising up and down with the tossing of the ship.