I had lain down in my berth, and had dozed off into dreamland, and fancied I saw a woman standing, much as the Virgin in Raffaele’s “Assumption” at Dresden, high up between the ship and the shore, motioning me not to be afraid. At this moment down rushed the governor of the Gambia, exclaiming, “For God’s sake get up! the ship is going ashore!” I was so much under the influence of the dream, and assured thereby of Divine protection, that I told him to take my life-preserver, which was hanging up in the cabin, and to save himself. Up he rushed again, life-preserver in hand, while I lay quietly in my berth, listening to all the hubbub and trampling of feet on the deck overhead, until the roar of the breakers and the cessation of blowing off steam, made me rather anxious as to whether I was not, after all, going down. My anxieties soon came to an end. The governor appeared once more, saying all danger was over, and thanked me most warmly for having lent him the life-preserver. It appeared from his rather excited account, that after lifting the anchor to start for Sierra Leone, our next place of call, the rudder-chains got jammed between decks, and the steamer was helplessly drifting ashore. The anchor was then dropped again; but, from some untoward mismanagement, the chain had been detached from the capstan, and slipped through the hawser-holes into the sea, going after the anchor to the bottom. In this awful predicament we approached the rugged shore, when, at the last moment, the recoil of the heavy seas as they were hurled back into the deep from the shore, jerked the rudder-chains free. The good ship Harbinger answered her helm again, and steamed safely away on her mission. The next morning I was congratulated by all on board for my generous conduct in giving my life-preserver to Mr Macdonald (who was rather an elderly personage). So, besides the nuisance of being thanked (which is always a bore), to increase my confusion still more, I knew perfectly well it was utterly undeserved, for I had felt so thoroughly sure of Divine protection when I gave the life-preserver away, that it was evidently useless to me. I never had the courage while on board to tell my dream, through fear of the pitying smiles it would raise; so I passed off, very unwillingly, for a far braver man than I really was.