served
wonderfully to cheer our drooping spirits.

After incredible labor we succeeded, at length, in getting the long-boat
over the side without material accident, and into this we crowded the
whole of the crew and most of the passengers. This party made off
immediately, and, after undergoing much suffering, finally arrived, in
safety, at Ocracoke Inlet, on the third day after the wreck.

Fourteen passengers, with the Captain, remained on board, resolving to
trust their fortunes to the jolly-boat at the stern. "We lowered it
without difficulty, although it was only by a miracle that we prevented
it from swamping as it touched the water. It contained, when afloat, the
captain and his wife, Mr. Wyatt and party, a Mexican officer, wife, four
children, and myself, with a negro valet."

We had no room, of course, for anything except a few positively
necessary instruments, some provision, and the clothes upon our backs.
No one had thought of even attempting to save anything more. What must
have been the astonishment of all then, when, having proceeded a few
fathoms from the ship, Mr. Wyatt stood up in the stern-sheets, and
coolly demanded of Captain Hardy that the boat should be put back for
the purpose of taking in his oblong box!

"Sit down, Mr. Wyatt," replied the Captain, somewhat sternly, "you will
capsize us if you do not sit quite still. Our gunwale is almost in the
water now."

"The box!" vociferated Mr. Wyatt, still standing--"the box, I say!
Captain Hardy, you cannot, you _will_ not refuse me. Its weight will be
but a trifle--it is nothing--mere nothing. By the mother who bore
you--for the love of Heaven--by your hope of salvation, I _implore_ you
to put back for the box!"

The Captain, for a moment, seemed touched by the earnest appeal of the
artist, but he regained his stern composure, and merely said:

"Mr. Wyatt you are _mad_. I cannot listen to you. Sitdown, I say, or you
will swamp the boat. Stay--hold him--seize him! he is about to spring
overboard! There--I knew it--he is over!"

As the Captain said this, Mr. Wyatt, in fact, sprang from the boat,
and, as we were yet in the lee of the wreck, succeeded, by almost
superhuman exertion, in getting hold of a rope which hung from the
fore-chains. In another moment he was on board, and rushing frantically
down into the cabin.

In the meantime, we had been swept astern of the ship, and being quite
out of her lee, were at the mercy of the tremendous sea wh