gan to ply
between. As it would not carry but two persons at once, it took some
time before the specified persons had passed over. At the last voyage
there was but one to go. This officer as he took his place on the seat
beside the rowers, called out to Stewart to "come along, for the flood
was rapidly rising on the rock, and his staying behind would do the
soldiers no good." The lieutenant however refused the invitation, with
the words that as he had promised the soldiers to remain with them, he
was determined to do so, whether the issue was life or death.

So, while the officers with the pilot and sailors were borne to a
place of comparative safety, Stewart stood with his two hundred
soldiers upon that naked rock that gradually grew less from the rising
of the encroaching waters.

Not without good ground for apprehension, had the last departing
officer warned the lieutenant of the danger that threatened from the
advancing tide. The rock on which two hundred human beings were now
crowded, hoping to escape or gain a respite from death, was one which
in nautical phrase is called a sunken reef, that is only above water
at ebb tide, while at flood, except when swayed by a sweeping north
wind, the sea buries it in a depth of ten or fifteen feet.

The pilot knew this well, and having made it known to the colonel,
this knowledge was the occasion of his heartless proposition, that the
officers should be saved, leaving the soldiers to perish.

But when men deal treacherously with the unfortunate, or seek to ruin
the unsuspecting, it is then that a kind Providence watches over
them--it is then that the hand of the Most High is stretched forth for
their protection;--throughout the whole of this day, the only wind
that held the flood tide in check, namely the north-east, swept over
the still angry ocean and restrained its perilous advance.

Soon after the ship went down, the sea became covered with boxes and
barrels, together with many other articles of the stores on board
which had been floated from the hold; the confined air between the
decks had caused an explosion, and burst the vessel in every part.
This was providential, if those casks of provisions would only flock
toward the rock, they might be able to secure enough to support them
until help could be obtained either by a passing vessel, or from the
shore.

In the meantime, the still rising water had encroached so far upon the
rock that but one dry place was left; h