d silent as the grave over which he floated, and
into which he saw this last of his companions descend without a
struggle or a cry, as he approached within twenty yards of him. Yes,
he beheld the last of his brave crew die beside him; and now he was
alone in the cold silence of night, more awful than the strife of
the elements which had preceded. Perhaps at this time something
might warn him that he too would soon be mingled with the dead; but
if such thoughts did intrude, they were but for a moment; and again
his mental energies, joined with his lion heart and bodily prowess,
cast away all fear, and he reckoned the remotest possible chances of
deliverance, applying the means,

"'Courage and Hope both teaching him the practice.'

"Up to this time, Winterton Light had served instead of a land-mark
to direct his course; but the tide had now carried him out of sight
of it, and in its stead 'a bright star stood over where' his hopes
of safety rested. With his eyes steadfastly fixed upon it, he
continued swimming on, calculating the time when the tide would
turn. But his trials were not yet past. As if to prove the strength
of human fortitude, the sky became suddenly overclouded, and
'darkness was upon the face of the deep.' He no longer knew his
course, and he confessed, that for a moment he was afraid; yet he
felt, that 'fear is but the betraying of the succors which reason
offereth,' and that which roused _him_ to further exertion, would
have sealed the fate of almost any other human being. A sudden short
cracking peal of thunder burst in stunning loudness just over his
head, and the forked and flashing lightning at brief intervals threw
its vivid fires around him. This, too, in its turn passed away, and
left the sea once more calm and unruffled: the moon (nearly full)
again threw a more brilliant light upon the waters, which the storm
had gone over without waking from their slumbers. His next effort
was to free himself from his heavy laced boots, which greatly
encumbered him, and in which he succeeded by the aid of his knife.
He now saw Lowestoft's high Lighthouse, and could occasionally
discern the tops of the cliffs beyond Garlestone on the Suffolk
coast. The swell of the sea drove him over the Cross Sand Ridge, and
he then got sight of a buoy, which, although it told him his exact
position, 'took him rather aback,' as he had hoped he was nearer the
shore. It proved to be the chequered buoy, St. Nicholas' Gate, off