le
captain. We got on tolerably well with them. Jack danced his hornpipe,
I sang, and the other two men made themselves generally useful. I,
therefore, no longer had any great fears about our present safety.

A dreadful doom was, however, prepared for most on board. One night I
was awoke by a terrific noise, and, rushing on deck, I found that one of
those fierce hurricanes which occur at times in the tropics had just
commenced. Amid a mass of spoondrift the schooner drove helplessly
before it. The night was dark as pitch, except when vivid flashes of
forked lightning darted from the clouds and shed a bright blue glare on
our decks, exhibiting a scene of horror and confusion seldom surpassed.
The seamen ran to and fro shrieking with terror, calling on their saints
to help them, and vowing candles and other offerings at their shrines,
the fiercest and most quarrelsome generally showing the most abject
fear. The little captain, to do him justice, kept his presence of mind,
and endeavoured to restore order, but he had lost all control over his
crew. Jack found his way aft to where I was standing, and I was truly
glad to have him near me.

"It's to be hoped there's no land under our lee, or it will fare ill
with us," said he. "But I'm not quite certain. Just now, when there
was a bright flash of lightning, I thought I saw something very like it
right ahead of us. We must be ready for the worst, I'm thinking, Mr
D'Arcy."

I felt this to be the case, and prayed earnestly to God to stretch forth
His hand to save us. Scarcely a minute had elapsed after Jack had
spoken, when the tempest, thundering down on the accursed slave ship
more violently than before, the lightning flashing more vividly, a
terrific shock was felt, which made her tremble as if about to part
asunder; the tall masts bent like willow wands, and fell with a crash
into the sea; and the voracious waves came curling up, foam-crested,
astern, and sweeping everything before them. The howling of the fierce
hurricane overpowered the agonised shrieks of the drowning crew, as they
were carried overboard; while from the hold arose the heart-piercing
cries of despair and terror of the helpless negroes who were confined
there, deprived of even a chance of escape. Our two shipmates had found
their way aft, to where Jack and I were holding on for our lives,
sheltered partly by the raised poop. Still we drove on. We had
evidently been forced over a reef, and