k kept up his courage, and after eating a piece of hard bread for
breakfast, began to feel better.

Towards noon the fog blew off, and the beach was visible on the
right,--long, low, desolate, a shore of interminable sand, over which the
breakers leaped and ran like hordes of wild horses with streaming tails
and manes. Not a sign of vegetation was to be seen on that barren coast,
nor any trace of human existence, save here a lonely house on the ridge,
and yonder a dismantled wreck careened high upon the beach, or the ribs
of some half-buried hulk protruding from the sand.

On the other side was an unbroken horizon of water. Numerous vessels of
the fleet were still in sight And now a little steamer came dashing gayly
along, hailed with cheers. It was the Picket, General Burnside's
flag-ship.

In the afternoon, more fog. But at sunset it was clear. The wind was
light, blowing from the south. But now the ocean rolled in long, enormous
swells, showing that the vessels were approaching Cape Hatteras; for,
whatever may be the aspect of the sea elsewhere, here its billows are
never at rest.

So the sun went down, and the night came on, with its cold moon and
stars, and Hatteras lighthouse shot its arrowy ray far out across the
dark water.

The breeze freshened and increased to a gale; and the violence of the
waves increased with it, until the schooner creaked and groaned in every
part, and it seemed as if she must break in pieces. Sometimes the billows
burst upon the deck with a thunder-crash, and, sweeping over it, poured
in cataracts from her sides. Now a heavy cross-sea struck her beams with
the jarring force of an avalanche of rocks, flinging more than one
unlucky fellow clear from his berth. And now her bows went under, sunk by
a weight of rolling water, from which it seemed for an instant impossible
that she could ever emerge. But rise she did, each time, slowly,
laboring, quivering, and groaning, like a living thing in mortal agony.
Once, as she plunged, the great cable that united her fortunes with those
of the steamer, unable to bear the tremendous strain, snapped like a wet
string; and immediately she fell off helplessly before the gale.

The troops had a terrible night of it. Many were deathly sick. Two or
three broke their watches, besides getting badly bruised, by pitching
from their bunks. Frank would not have dared to go to sleep, even if he
could. Once, when the ship gave a lurch, and stopped suddenly, st