At this instant a wild and piercing cry rang in their ears:--'twas from the boat. She had swamped; the human beings she contained were all swallowed up in the boiling waves, and that shriek of agony was their funeral knell. A horrid silence followed this appalling scream, unbroken save by the lashing of the billows against the rocks, and the low, half-suppressed moaning of the winds,--till the senses of the travellers became bewildered, and they shrieked in agony. Their peril indeed grew every moment more intense, for every wave carried them nearer and nearer to those frowning crags, whilst their dark sides, rearing themselves in awful majesty, seemed mustering their strength to repel the insolent intruders that sought to invade their territory. The doctor and Edric, in the mean time, suffering a thousand deaths in the protracted horrors they were compelled to endure, and which they could neither mitigate nor evade, shrank back with the shivering of affrighted nature trembling at dissolution, every time the wave on which their vessel floated seemed to dash against the shore. At length, however, the fate they had so long dreaded arrived. Their shattered hulk was raised on a tremendous billow, and thrown with fearful violence upon the rocks, with a force that shivered it to atoms, and engulphed the doctor and Edric in the boiling surge. The next wave, however, returning, swept them along in its bosom, and threw them, perfectly insensible, though locked in each other's arms, upon the shore. CHAPTER XX. It was morning, and the glowing sunbeams danced gaily on the sparkling waters of the dark blue deep, as, gently rippling, it laved the rocky shore on which Edric and his tutor had been thrown; and seemed to smile, as if in mockery of the mischiefs it had wrought. There, sheltered by a rock, whose jutting crag had saved them from being carried back into the devouring ocean, lay our travellers, apparently buried in sleep; returning consciousness not having yet dispelled the torpor produced by the fearful terrors of the night. The sun now shone brightly, and its glowing heat revived Edric from his trance. Slowly and heavily he unclosed his languid eyes, and, forgetting where he was, attempted to rise. He succeeded; but weak and dizzy, he only staggered a few paces ere he again fell: the roaring of the ocean still sounded in his ears, his senses swam, and, giddy and enfeebled by his previous exhaustion, he fancied himself still tossed upon the foaming billows. For some time, he lay in a state of torture, the thrill of returning circulation tingling through his veins, till the recollection of what had passed flashing across his mind, he again endeavoured to rouse himself, and seek his tutor. The unfortunate doctor, however, appeared to be no more, and as Edric gazed upon his inanimate form, he might have exclaimed with Prince Henry, "I could have better spared a better man."