Again came the overpowering conviction—it was the brave McKenzie who was lost. The young missionaries had probably been taken off at the prayers of their wives; for sailors have a soft place in their hearts, or heads, for the woes of women, and will risk much to alleviate them; and so they had probably consented to risk the swamping of their heavily-laden boat by the additional weight of the two young husbands rather than listen to the sobs and cries of the two heartbroken young wives. But Captain McKenzie had chosen to remain on the wreck with his one abandoned passenger—Justin Rosenthal; and he—the gallant McKenzie—had been swept off the deck and was lost! Such was the conclusion that Justin came to. And at the thought he sat down and dropped his head upon his hands and sobbed aloud; for, you see, as I have often said before, the bravest are always the tenderest. The doctor’s little dog, unable to endure such an appalling sight, to him, as a man’s distress, jumped and whined around him in sympathetic grief and terror. At length Justin lifted up his bowed head and tried to bring reason and religion to the relief of his great regret. He reflected that the death of so good a man could but have been a quick passage to eternal bliss—a blessed fate compared to that which awaited himself, left to perish slowly on the abandoned wreck, or that which attended the fugitives in the boats, exposed to battle with the elements, and perhaps with hunger and thirst for days, upon the bare chance of saving their lives. Somewhat strengthened by the first clause of his reflections upon the eternal destiny of the brave and good captain, and very much distracted by the counter-irritant of his anxiety for the fate of the lifeboats, Justin Rosenthal arose to leave the dining cabin, the little dog jumping and barking around him. Just as he went out on deck, the sun broke through a mass of black clouds, and striking upon the brasses of the stern, lighted up the whole wreck in a perfect blaze of glory. It was the same “star of hope” that had been seen by Britomarte, from the lifeboats, just before the wreck disappeared from her view in the distance. For it must be remembered that the wreck, being much the larger object of the two, and being hoisted high upon the rocks, was visible to the boat’s crew long after the boat was lost to Justin’s sight. By noon the sea had fallen so much that the whole length of the deck from stem to stern was above the water; and Justin was enabled to take note of the actual condition of the ship.