My temper of despair was not to be soothed by recollection of this time yesterday, by perception of the visible evidence of God's mercy in this tranquillity of sky and sea, at a time when, but for the change of weather, we had certainly been doomed. I was young; I passionately desired to live. Had death been the penalty of the lifeboat attempt, I might, had time been granted me, have contemplated my end with the fortitude that springs from the sense of having done well. But what was heroic in this business had disappeared out of it when the lifeboat capsized and left me safe on board. It was now no more than a vile passage of prosaic shipwreck, with its attendant horror of lingering death, and nothing noble in what had been done, or that might yet have to be done, to prop up my spirits. Thus I sat, full of wretchedness, and miserably thinking, mechanically eyeing the dusky heap of barque; then breaking away from my afflicting reverie, I stood up, holding by the mast, to carefully sweep the sea, with a prayer for the sight of the coloured gleams of a steamer's lights, since there was nothing to be expected in the way of sail in this calm that was upon the water. I was thus occupied, when I was startled by a strange cry--I cannot describe it. It resembled the moan of a wild creature wounded to death, but with a human note in it that made the sound something not to be imagined. For an instant I believed it came from the sea, till I saw by the dim light of the starshine the figure of Captain Nielsen, in a sitting-posture, pointing with the whole length of his arm in the direction of his barque. I looked, and found the black mass of hull gone, and nothing showing but the dark lines of spars and rigging that melted out of my sight as I watched. A noise of rending, intermingled with the shock of an explosion, came from where she had disappeared. It signified no more than the blowing up of the decks as she sank; but the star-studded vastness of gloom made the sound appalling beyond language to convey. 'Help!' cried Helga. 'My father is dying.' I gained the side of the cot in a stride, and kneeled by him, but there was no more to be seen of his face than the mere faint whiteness of it, and I could not tell whether his eyes were open or not. Imagining, but scarcely hoping, that a dram might put some life into the poor fellow, I lowered the bull's-eye lamp from the masthead to seek for one of the jars of spirits we had stowed; but when we came to put the tin pannikin to his lips we found his teeth set. 'He is not dead, Helga,' I cried; 'he is in a fit. If he were dead his jaw would drop;' and this I supposed, though I knew little of death in those days.