Even as I spoke the baleful light streamed far up into the rapidly darkening air; a private signal had been given to one of his men, and it was now too late to remonstrate. I rushed to my own boat, calling on a boy, who sometimes accompanied me on such occasions, to follow. One glance at the ship assured me that in five minutes she would be on the sunken rock over which the light gleamed, and no human power could prevent her from instantly going to pieces. My boat had weathered many a storm as severe as this threatened to be, and I was fearless as to the result. I resolved to die, or save some of the helpless creatures I had seen on the deck of the doomed ship. A whistle brought a large Newfoundland dog to my side, and in a very short time I was launched on the waves of the heaving ocean. My father nodded approvingly to me, thinking that I had made up my mind to assist as usual in rescuing our game from the waves. "Right, my boy!" said he, through his speaking trumpet: "all you save to-night shall belong to yourself alone." I was borne beyond the reach of his voice, and as I turned my face toward the ship, there came a violent burst of thunder which seemed to fill the echoing vault of heaven, attended by a continual flashing of lightning. Mingled with its awful roar was a cry more terrible still, that of human agony uttering its wild appeal to heaven for mercy in the last dire extremity. The ship had struck, and hundreds were cast into the ocean. The struggling wretches vainly raised their arms from the foaming waters, and implored help from those who could have saved them had they so willed it. The boats passed on and left them to their fate.