Night shut in but we kindled a huge bonfire on the beach and patrolled the shore up and down all night, hoping that some other unfortunate might be brought in with the tide. Long before daybreak the shore for miles was strewn with flotsam and jetsam from the wreck which was being constantly rended by the sea; bags of sumac, bags of nuts and even casks of wine mingled and washed together in the surf, but not a human body, alive or dead, was cast up by the sea. Every watcher on the beach believed that the ship had been entirely broken up, and that every person on board had perished. Still we lingered awaiting the coming of the sunlight; when it did come and objects were visible for any distance, what was our surprise to see the after deck house of the bark still in place, and a portion of her bow and the stump of her broken foremast still standing; the huge waves were still smashing over her furiously. If we had been surprised at seeing any portion of the hull still standing above the water, we were dumbfounded when we saw a man jump from the bow near the broken foremast and swim through the fiercely raging waters to the after deck house, and in the face of the pounding sea that beat upon him, climb under a sheltering piece of the cabin that had not been torn away. That a human being could live through such a night as that, in that icy water and retain his hold upon any part of those ice covered timbers and sea swept wreck seemed incredible. But the chapter of horrors was not yet complete in this wretched disaster. Piece by piece the sea tore away what remained of the wreck until nothing but the deck house roof remained above the sea; as wave after wave hurled itself against the battered top it was seen to lift from its fastenings that held it to the submerged wreck and the next wave bore it off far into the thrashing sea. Then we saw, clinging to the few remaining pieces of the frame of the deck house, with a death grasp, four members of the ship’s company, but endurance had reached its limits and they were quickly swept from the last possible thing to which they could cling, and though they made a last heroic effort to seize some piece of wreckage, two of them did succeed in grasping some floating object and were carried for a considerable distance towards the shore, but their long and terrible exposure had so exhausted and chilled them that they could make no further exertion and the mad sea claimed them. Some adverse criticism was directed against the men of the Life Saving corps, for their failure to rescue these sailors, but it was wholly unmerited as the Life Savers did everything in their power or that it was possible to do under the circumstances. It was one of those terrible marine disasters, of which there are many, where man is a plaything in the grip of the sea when the storm king is abroad in his might. THE JASON