We had by this time been tossing about upwards of four hours, yet despite the storm, which increased every moment in energy, our vessel bore up well, labouring and pitching frightfully to be sure, but as yet uninjured in sail, mast, or hull. As for her course, it was--so the mate assured me--"a moral impossible to say which way we were bound, whether for a trip to Spain, Holland, or Van Dieman's Land; it might be one, it might be t'other." Scarcely had he uttered these words, when a long rolling sea came sweeping on in hungry grandeur towards us, and at one rush tore open the ship's gun-wale, which now, completely at the mercy of the wave, went staggering, drunken, and blindfold, through the surge. From this fatal moment the sailors were kept constantly at the pumps, although so instantaneous was the rush of water into the hold, that they did little or no good; there seemed, in fact, not the ghost of a chance left us; even the mate had ceased whistling, and the captain's oaths began to assume the nature of a compromise between penitence and hardihood. It was now midnight, deep, awful midnight; the few remaining passengers had left the deck and retreated into a bed which they shared in common with the salt water. The Captain stood, like one bewildered, beside the helm, while I lay stretched along the forecastle, watching, as well as I could, the tremendous rushing of the waves. It was during a partial hush of the storm, when the wind, as if out of breath, was still, that a shifting light attached to some moving body, came bearing down full upon us. "This is an ugly night, sir," said the Captain, who now, for the first time, found words, "yet methinks I see a sail a-head." "Surely not," I replied, "no earthly vessel but our own can live on such a sea." Scarcely had the words escaped me, when "helm a lee!" was roared out in a loud emphatic tone, something between rage and fright. The captain strove to turn his helm, but in vain, the rudder had lost all power. At this instant, a rushing sound swept past us, and the two ships came in direct contact with each other. The crash was tremendous: down with a dizzy spinning motion went the strange vessel; one yell--but one shrill piercing yell, which is ever sounding in my ears, ensued--a pause, and all was over.