'The light burns brightly in the Tower, Master Latimer, and I fancy every now and then I see something flitting past it. I suspect we have friends watching us there.' 'I wish both your lord's watch and theirs were over,' replied Latimer. 'I like not this dark, stormy struggle.' 'Oh, never fear, Master! We have a good pilot to take charge of us! Give way, my lads! that's it! a strong arm, and good courage, my boys!' Two very good things in their way, but both may be put to the test when other things come in their way. Just at that moment a flash of lightning opened upon them, and showed them such a sight as made the stoutest heart among them tremble. A vessel without light aboard, or sail, or man to steer her, seemed as if she had broken from her moorings, and was driving before the wind in the very direction of the boat. She looked like a floating mountain as she came along, seen for the instant, and then involved in impenetrable darkness. 'There she comes,' exclaimed the man ahead; 'bout ship, my lads, or we are all overboard!' Down she came--the work of an instant--she swept directly over them, turning De Freston's boat keel upwards. Happily she did not strike them midships, but caught them astern, twisted them round first--and was gone. The shrieks of those unhappy men were borne upon the wind, and plainly heard by the Lord De Freston in the chapel of Alneshborne. The neighboring monks were roused from their slumbers by the alarm given by the brother in the watch-tower: they listened, and could plainly hear the cries of distress. The boatmen, who had all been capsized, extricated themselves as well as they could, and clung to the boat, which, having been so suddenly upset, contained a great quantity of air, which added to its buoyancy. 'Are you there, Benns?' 'Is that you, Atkins? Hold on, my boys!' 'I say, where is my young master?' Latimer alone was not there. Having been seated directly in the stern of the boat, the violence of the blow had thrown him into the eddy of the driving vessel, and in a moment he was drawn, as it were, in a vortex far away from his companions. The vessel, however, drove faster than he did upon the waters, and, being an expert swimmer, he had struck out boldly against the sweeping and curling waves. When a man has to struggle for life, and knows, too, that it must be a hard struggle, he had better not waste his strength in his first efforts. Presence of mind is certainly the greatest requisite in sudden emergencies; and Latimer's first exclamation was not a shriek of terror, but a prayer, short, earnest, and expressive. 'Lord help me! I am in danger. Support me through this trial, with the help of thy right hand and holy arm.'