For a time we suffered but trifling injury from the cross-fire of the batteries, and it was almost certain that we should weather the tail of the reef, and clear the entrance of the harbour. The frigate was in stays. “She’ll do it easily,” exclaimed the master; while Captain O’Brien, with a smile of exultation, whispered in my ear, “What think you, Rawlings, of the fortunes of the curate’s son? Hold on the packet--my star has saved us!” Alas! his exultation was but short-lived. A thirty-two-pound shot struck us as he spoke: the foretop-mast went over the side--we missed stays, fell off to leeward, and settled on the reef, within musket-range of the heaviest battery. The seas struck the vessel so fast and heavily that it was quite apparent she would speedily go to pieces. The captain fell mortally wounded. He turned a dying look to me: I understood its silent order; and the packet which contained the memorials of his secret love was committed to the deep. In a few minutes afterwards the fate of all on board the Harpy was decided. A lofty swell came rolling in--the disabled frigate was lifted off the reef--she fell over into deep water, settled, and went down; and in her shattered hull, the dead, the dying, and the living found a common grave; for, with the exception of myself and six others, not another soul of that gallant crew escaped. ‘We saved ourselves on floating portions of the wreck, to be picked up the same evening, and made prisoners. What calamitous events had one brief day produced! On the preceding evening, how happily had I sought my hammock, home in my fancy, and you, Julia, in my dreams! How was all changed! frigate and crew buried together in the ocean deeps, and in the very moment of their triumph!--and the poor handful that survived, consigned to a captivity so hopeless, that to its duration no limit could be assigned! We were marched into the interior, and secured in an old fortress, already over-crowded with squalid creatures, half-clad, half-starved, and to whom, generally, death would have been a deliverance--the only one, indeed, that they, poor wretches, could look to with any thing like certainty. At first, I thought I should have sunk into despair; but it is strange how soon men will accommodate themselves to misery. Gradually the cup of suffering lost a portion of its bitterness; and in the laugh, at first torturous to my ears, at last _I_ could also join. “Let none despond, let none despair”--there is no mortal evil without its remedy. Before a month passed, the elasticity of my spirit returned--another current of thought occupied my mind--my very dreams were engrossed with projects of escape--and every bird that flitted across the prison walls seemed to invite me to become as free as it was.