send down to San Francisco
with the bark. In it I assured her that she need not feel any further
anxiety about my safety, because the Russian-American telegraph line
had been abandoned. I was to be landed by the _Onward_ at Okhotsk; I
was coming home by way of St. Petersburg over a good post-road; and
I should not be exposed to any more dangers. As I sat there in the
dismasted sloop, shivering with cold and drifting out to sea before a
howling arctic gale, I remembered this letter, and wondered what my
poor mother would think if she could read its contents and at the same
time see in a mental vision the situation of the writer.

So far as I can remember, there was very little talking among the men
during these long, dark hours of suspense. None of us, I think, had
any hope; it was hard to make one's voice heard above the roaring of
the wind; and we all sat or cowered in the bottom of the boat, waiting
for an end which could not be very far away. Now and then a heavy sea
would break over us, and we would all begin bailing again with our
hats; but aside from this there was nothing to be done. It did not
seem to me probable that the half-wrecked sloop would live more than
three or four hours. The gale was constantly rising, and every few
minutes we were lashed with stinging whips of icy spray, as a fierce
squall struck the water to windward, scooped off the crests of the
waves, and swept them horizontally in dense white clouds across the
boat.

It must have been about nine o'clock when somebody in the bow shouted
excitedly, "I see a light!"

"Where away?" I cried, half rising from the bottom of the boat in the
stern-sheets.

"Three or four points off the port bow," the voice replied.

"Are you sure?" I demanded.

"I'm not quite sure, but I saw the twinkle of something away over
on the Matuga Island side. It's gone now," the voice added, after a
moment's pause; "but I saw something."

We all looked eagerly and anxiously in the direction indicated; but
strain our vision as we might, we could not see the faintest gleam or
twinkle in the impenetrable darkness to leeward. If there was a light
visible, in that or in any other direction, it could only be the
anchor-light of the _Onward_, because both coasts of the gulf were
uninhabited; but it seemed to me probable that the man had been
deceived by a sparkle of phosphorescence or the gleam of a white
foam-crest.

For fully five minutes no one spoke, but all stared into