under, shipping green seas over all--the sky was murky black--vivid flashes of lightning burst from it almost incessantly--and the loud rattling of the thunder, every now and then, was heard far above the howling of the gale and the roaring of the sea. Every eye was fixed in eager anxiety on the cables, which every now and then were buried in the sea, and then, as the ship rose to the swell, were seen far ahead of her, high above the surface of the water, stiff and rigid as bars of iron. "I know not how it happened, but, amid all the uproar around me, surrounded by faces which spoke but too plainly fears for the result, and conscious that our danger was imminent, I felt a kind of unnatural buoyancy of spirits, a secret conviction that, whatever might happen, I should escape unhurt. Telford stared at me, and muttered, 'The lad's fey, as they used to say in the North.' At two o'clock, the best bower cable parted, and the spare anchor was let go, but the cable went almost immediately. Our danger was now most imminent; our sole dependence was on our sheet cable; and it was evident to all on board that _that_ could not long resist the heavy strain. Our ensign was now hoisted, union downward, that well-known signal of extreme distress; and the mournful booming of our guns seemed to our excited imaginations to be the knell of our passing minutes. At seven o'clock, a cry was heard, which, like an electric shock, was passed from one end of the ship to the other in a moment, stunning the most daring spirits with its dreaded import. The sheet cable had parted, and the ship was at the mercy of the wind and sea. An order was now given for every man to provide for his own safety, and a scene of the greatest confusion ensued. For about ten minutes, the ship continued to drive before the wind, and then struck, with a dreadful crash, upon a reef of rocks, broadside to the shore. The main and mizzen masts were immediately cut away, and the foremast soon after went by the board. To add to our horrors, the gun-room was discovered to be on fire, and in a short time the smoke came eddying up from the different hatchways in such volumes as to prevent any communication with the lower deck. Feeble would have been the efforts of man in opposing the devouring flame; but here, element was fighting against element, and the sea claimed the mastery; the vast bodies of water which were constantly dashing over the ship effected, in about ten minutes, what no human exertion could have performed, and we were saved from a fiery, to anticipate a watery death. The scene on board the wreck was now awful in the extreme; every sea that broke over her swept away new victims; and those who were left clinging to life with the energy of despair, shuddered, as they missed their companions, in the anticipation of their own approaching doom. Several of the crew, maddened by the horror of a slow and lingering death, plunged desperately into the jaws of