f the troubled waters, which
now leaped, and foamed, and raged above their heads. We had little time
to mourn their fate, for we were compelled to look after our own safety.
Night was coming on. A dreary prospect was before us. Still Pat Brady
kept up his spirits wonderfully. "Sure, Mr Burton, old Mother Macrone
of Ballynahinch was after prophesying you would become an admiral one of
these days, and sure if we was drownded, we should not live to see it,
nor you neither for that matter; and so sure as Mistress Macrone is an
honest woman, and spoke the truth, we need not be after throubling
ourselves about not getting to land. It will be some time before we can
manage to reach it, however." I cannot say that Paddy's remarks had
much effect on us, although I fully believe he spoke what he thought to
be the truth. We were still a long way from the land, when darkness
settled down upon us, and the shattered raft continued tossing up and
down on the foaming seas. Every instant we thought would be our last,
for we knew that the spars to which we were clinging might be torn from
the frame-work, and we might be deprived of our last remaining support.
Still, life was sweet to all of us. We who had escaped were the least
injured of the party. Twelve had left the wreck, six now alone remained
alive, two only of the crew of the ill-fated frigate--Smith, an
Englishman, and Sandy McPherson, from the North of the Tweed. They were
both brave, determined fellows, but Sandy's spirit was troubled, not so
much, apparently, by the fearful position in which we were placed, as by
what he called Pat Brady's recklessness and frivolity. Even when thus
clinging to our frail raft, now tossed high up on a foaming sea, now
sent gliding down into the bottom of the trough with darkness around us,
almost starved, and our throats parched by thirst, Brady's love of a
joke would still break forth. "Arrah, but it's illegant dancing we're
learning out here!" he exclaimed, "though, faith, I would rather it were
on the green turf than footing it on the top of the green waves, but we
will be safe on shore before many hours are over."

"Ay, laddie, but it's ill dancing o'er the graves of your friends,"
observed Sandy. "Just think where they are, and where we may be not ten
minutes hence. You will not keep the breath in your body half that time
under the salt water, and we may, one and all of us, be fathoms deep
before five minutes have passed away.