The boats continued to increase the distance between them and the blazing ship, amidst a dead silence broken only by the measured dip of the oars; and many an eye was turned with intense anxiety shoreward with the hope of descrying the expected pilot. At length a distinct hail—and I felt my heart stop heating at the sound—was heard ahead, lustily responded to by the seamen’s throats, and presently afterward a swiftly-propelled pilot-boat shot out of the thick darkness ahead, almost immediately followed by another. “What ship is that?” cried a man standing in the bows of the first boat. “The _Neptune_, and that is Captain Starkey on the bowsprit!” I sprang eagerly to my feet, and with all the force I could exert, shouted: “A hundred pounds for the first boat that reaches the ship!” “That’s young Mr. Mainwaring’s face and voice!” exclaimed the foremost pilot. “Hurra, then, for the prize!” and away both sped with eager vigor, but unaware certainly of the peril of the task. In a minute or so another shore-boat came up, but after asking a few questions, and seeing how matters stood, remained, and lightened us of a portion of our living cargoes. We were all three too deep in the water, the small boat perilously so. Great God! the terrible suspense we all felt while this was going forward. I can scarcely bear, even now, to think about it. I shut my eyes, and listened with breathless, palpitating excitement for the explosion that should end all. It came!—at least I thought it did, and I sprang convulsively to my feet. So sensitive was my brain, partly no doubt from recent sickness as well as fright, that I had mistaken the sudden shout of the boats’ crews, for the dreaded catastrophe. The bowsprit, from the end of which a rope was dangling, was empty! and both pilots, made aware doubtless of the danger, were pulling with the eagerness of fear from the ship. The cheering among us was renewed again and again, during which I continued to gaze with arrested breath and fascinated stare at the flaming vessel and fleeing pilot-boats. Suddenly a pyramid of flame shot up from the hold of the ship, followed by a deafening roar. I fell, or was knocked down, I know not which; the boat rocked as if caught in a fierce eddy; next came the hiss and splash of numerous heavy bodies falling from a great height into the water; and then the blinding glare and stunning uproar were succeeded by a soundless silence and a thick darkness, in which no man could discern his neighbor. The stillness was broken by a loud, cheerful hail from one of the pilot-boats: we recognized the voice, and the simultaneous and ringing shout which burst from us assured the gallant seaman of our own safety, and how exultingly we all rejoiced in his. Half an hour afterward we were safely landed; and as the ship and cargo had been specially insured, the only ultimate evil result of this fearful passage in the lives of the passengers and crew of the _Neptune_