ship on that wild night was held in abeyance. It was deemed unnecessary
to heave it yet, or it was troublesome, and they would wait till nearer
the land. No one now can tell the reasons that influenced the captain,
but _the lead was not used_. Owing to similar delay or neglect,
hundreds upon hundreds of ships have been lost, and thousands of human
lives have been sacrificed!

The ship passed like a dark phantom over the very head of the miner who
was at work many fathoms below the bottom of the sea.

"Land, ho!" came suddenly in a fierce, quick shout from the mast-head.

"Starboard! starboard--hard!" cried the captain, as the roar of breakers
ahead rose above the yelling of the storm.

Before the order was obeyed or another word spoken the ship struck, and
a shriek of human terror followed, as the foremast went by the board
with a fearful crash. The waves burst over the stern, sweeping the
decks fore and aft. Wave after wave lifted the great ship as though it
had been a child's toy, and dashed her down upon the rocks. Her bottom
was stove in, her planks and timbers were riven like matchwood. Far
down below man was destroying the flinty rock, while overhead the rock
was destroying the handiwork of man! But the destruction in the one
case was slow, in the other swift. A desperate but futile effort was
made by the crew to get out the boats, and the passengers, many of whom
were women and children, rushed frantically from the cabin to the deck,
and clung to anything they could lay hold of, until strength failed, and
the waves tore them away.

One man there was in the midst of all the terror-stricken crew who
retained his self-possession in that dread hour. He was a tall, stern
old man with silver locks--an Indian merchant, one who had spent his
youth and manhood in the wealthy land collecting gold--"making a
fortune," he was wont to say--and who was returning to his fatherland to
spend it. He was a thinking and calculating man, and in the
anticipation of some such catastrophe as had actually overtaken him, he
had secured some of his most costly jewels in a linen belt. This belt,
while others were rushing to the boats, the old man secured round his
waist, and then sprang on deck, to be swept, with a dozen of his
fellow-passengers, into the sea by the next wave that struck the doomed
vessel. There was no one on that rugged coast to lend a helping hand.
Lifeboats did not then, as now, nestle in little nooks on