rage a voice comes from the other vessel--"Where you coming to?" "Hard
down with it!" "He's into us!" "Clear away your boats!" Then there is a
sound like "smack." Then comes a long scraunch, and a thunderous rattle
of blocks; a sail goes with a report like a gun; the vessels bump a few
times, and then one draws away, leaving the other with bows staved in. A
wild clamour surges up from below, but there is no time to heed that;
the men toil like Titans, and the hideous music of prayers and curses
disturbs the night. Then the vessel that was hit amidships rolls a
little, and there is a gurgle like that of an enormous, weir: a mast
goes with a sharp report; a man's figure appears on the taffrail and
bounds far into the sea--it is an experienced hand who wants to escape
the down-draught; the hull shudders, grows steady, and then with one
lurch the ship swashes down and the bellowing vortex throws up huge
spirts of boiling spray. A few stray swimmers are picked up, but the
rest of the company will be seen nevermore. Fancy those women in that
darkened steerage! Think of it, and then say what should be done to an
owner who stints his officers in the matter of lamp-oil; or to a captain
who does not use what the owner provides! The huddled victims wake from
confused slumbers; some scream--some become insane on the instant; the
children add their shrill clamour to the mad rout; and the water roars
in. Then the darkness grows thick, and the agonized crowd tear and
throttle each other in fierce terror; and then approaches the
slowly-coming end. Oh, how often--how wearily often--have such scenes
been enacted on the face of this fair world! And all to save a little
lamp-oil!

Yet again--a great vessel plunges away to sea bearing a precious freight
of some one thousand souls. Perhaps the owners reckon the cargo in the
hold as being worth more than the human burden; but of course opinions
differ. The wild rush from one border of the ocean to the other goes on
for a few days and nights, and the tremendous structure of steel cleaves
the hugest waves as though they were but clouds. Down below the
luxurious passengers live in their fine hotel, and the luckier ones are
quite happy and ineffably comfortable. If a sunny day breaks, then the
pallid battalions in the steerage come up to the air, and the ship's
deck is like a long animated street. A thousand souls, we said? True!
Now let some quiet observant man of the sailorly sort go round at ni