s, who clung with the tenacity of despair to the wreck.

CHAPTER V.

JOHN STEVENS' CHARGE.

The fair wind blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea.
--COLERIDGE.

Since the art of navigation became known, there have been castaways in
romance and reality without number. De Foe's celebrated Robinson Crusoe
stands first, but not alone among the shipwrecked mariners of truth and
fiction. How many countless thousands have suffered shipwreck and
disaster at sea, whose wild narratives have never been recorded, will
never be known.

John Stevens was not a reader of romance and poetry, which at his age
were in their infancy in Virginia. The hardy pioneers of the New World
were kept too busy fighting Indians and building plantations and cities
to read romance or history. Consequently he had no similar adventures to
compare with his own. John had enough of the sturdy Puritan in his
nature to deeply feel the duty incumbent on him, and enough of the
cavalier to be a gentleman, unselfish and kind.

Throughout the long night he held the half inanimate form of Blanche in
his arms. The storm abated and the tide running out left the vessel
imbedded in the sands. John watched for the coming morn as a condemned
criminal looks for a pardon. He knew no cast nor west in the darkness;
but anon the sea and sky in a certain place became brighter and
brighter. The clouds rolled away, and he saw the bright morning star
fade, as the sable cloak of night was rent to admit the new born day.

Blanche sat up and, gazed over the scene as the flashing rays of
sunlight gleamed over the sea and shore.

"Are we all?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Was no one saved?"

"None but ourselves."

"And the ship?"

"Is a hopeless wreck on the sands," he answered.

As they rose to gaze upon their surroundings, John Stevens thought with
regret that if the crew and passengers had remained below hatches, they
would have been saved; but he and Blanche were all who remained, and he
turned his gaze to the wild shores hoping to discover some sign of
civilization. There was not a hamlet, house or wigwam to indicate that
Christian or savage inhabited the land.

Blanche mark