struggling
to extricate themselves from the mass of confusion and the water in
which they floundered. The sudden revulsion awoke all the men below, who
imagined that the ship was foundering; and, from the only hatchway not
secured, they poured up in their shirts with their other garments in
their hands, to put them on--if fate permitted.

Oswald Bareth was the first who clambered up from to leeward. He gained
the helm, which he put hard up. Captain Ingram and some of the seamen
also gained the helm. It is the rendezvous of all good seamen in
emergencies of this description; but the howling of the gale--the
blinding of the rain and salt spray--the seas checked in their running
by the shift of wind, and breaking over the ship in vast masses of
water--the tremendous peals of thunder--and the intense darkness which
accompanied these horrors, added to the inclined position of the vessel,
which obliged them to climb from one part of the deck to another, for
some time checked all profitable communication. Their only friend, in
this conflict of the elements, was the lightning (unhappy, indeed, the
situation in which lightning can be welcomed as a friend); but its vivid
and forked flames, darting down upon every quarter of the horizon,
enabled them to perceive their situation; and, awful as it was, when
momentarily presented to their sight, it was not so awful as darkness
and uncertainty. To those who have been accustomed to the difficulties
and dangers of a seafaring life, there are no lines which speak more
forcibly to the imagination, or prove the beauty and power of the Greek
poet, than those in the noble prayer of Ajax:--

Lord of earth and air,
O king! O father! hear my humble prayer.
Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore;
Give me to see--and Ajax asks no more.
If Greece must perish--we thy will obey;
But _let us perish in the face of day_!

[Illustration: _Oswald Bareth gained the helm, which he put hard up._]

Oswald gave the helm to two of the seamen, and with his knife cut adrift
the axes, which were lashed round the mizenmast in painted canvas
covers. One he retained for himself--the others he put into the hands of
the boatswain and the second mate. To speak so as to be heard was almost
impossible, from the tremendous roaring of the wind; but the lamp still
burned in the binnacle, and by its feeble light Captain Ingram could
distinguish the signs made by the mate, and could