rrific
violence. The offer was gladly accepted. The two cutters were
accordingly lowered to take hawsers to the barque. On the sheet-anchor
being weighed, it came up without resistance. Both flukes had been
carried away. The only hope of safety depended on the remaining anchor
and cable holding till sail could be made. In vain the boats attempted
to carry the hawsers to the barque. A strong current sent them to
leeward, and they were accordingly ordered again on board. Happily, at
this moment the wind veered a point to the east. There is no necessity
to tell the men to be sharp. The order to make sail is given. The crew
swarm aloft; the soldiers, under proper guidance, are stationed at the
halliards, and the tacks and sheets. The cable is slipped,
single-reefed topsails, courses, topgallant sails, jibs, and driver set.
Few among even the brave seamen who do not hold their breath and offer
up a silent prayer that the ship may cast the right way. Hurra! round
she comes. The sails fill. She moves through the water. The boats
with the hawser get alongside and are hoisted up, and the old "Ranger"
stands out towards the open sea. Is there a soul on board so dull and
ungrateful as not to return fervent thanks to a gracious superintending
God for deliverance from the imminent danger in which they have been
placed?

As the ship drew off the land, the rollers were seen coming in with
increased strength and size, and it was very evident that, had she not
got under weigh at the time she did, she would have been dashed to
pieces in the course, probably, of another short hour, and few of the
soldiers and crew would have escaped. [Note 1.]

"I tell you what, boys," said Mrs Rumbelow, "you will have to go
through a good many dangers in the course of your lives may be, but
never will you have a narrower escape than this. I was just now
thinking where we all should be to-morrow, and wishing I could be
certain that we should all meet together in heaven. Not that I think
any one of us have a right to go there for any good we have ever done;
only I wish you boys to recollect, when you are rapping out oaths and
talking as you should not talk, that at any moment you may be called
away out of this world; and just let me ask you if you think that you
are fit to enter the only place a wise person would wish to live in for
ever and ever?"

Mrs Rumbelow was not very lucid, it may be, in her theology, but she
was very earnes