e common passengers of the Kosciusko, and a knot of the
seamen, comprising not more than twenty souls, composed the groups,
scattered about the roughly yet securely lashed raft, silent and
observant all, as men who face their doom are apt to be.

I looked in vain for one familiar face, and for a moment regretted that
I had been withheld, as by some spell, for whose weird influence I could
never sufficiently account, from having cast my destiny with theirs, who
were so much nearer to me in station and congeniality of spirit than
those around me. With Miss Lamarque's hand locked in mine, I should have
vied with her, I felt, in cheerful courage; and the knightly calmness of
Dunmore might have sustained my drooping, fainting soul. These were my
peers, and, _with_ them, I should have been better content to be tried.

But the white squall, which had in no way affected us (so small and
partial was the sphere of its influence), had sufficed to separate ours
irretrievably from our companion-raft, and the squadron of boats that
had promised not to forsake as. And now the eye of agony was strained in
vain over the weltering waste, for a vestige of those refugees from the
Kosciusko--buried, perhaps, a thousand fathoms deep, by their sudden
visitors, beneath the waves of that deadly Atlantic sea.

Tears rained over my face as I thought of this probability, and,
hopeless as I was of rescue, the almost certain fate of my
companion-voyagers fell over me like a pall. "Better, perhaps--far
better had it been"--I thought so then--"had we all perished together in
that terrific sheet of flame that rose up like a dividing barrier
between us at the last. Fit emblem of the final day of doom. Our trials
were but begun. What more remained? God in heaven only knew!"

And rapidly, and in panoramic succession, all the fearful adventures of
raft and boat that I had ever read of, or heard related, passed across
my mind, ending with that latest, and perhaps the most fearful of
all--the wreck of the Medusa!

The night came down serene and beautiful. As the sun disappeared in
ocean, up rose the full-orbed moon--crimson and magnified by surrounding
vapors--that to the practised eye portended future tempest, calm as the
ocean and the heavens then seemed.

The constellations, singularly distinct and splendid, had the power to
fix and fascinate my vision--never felt before--as they shone above me,
clear and crystalline as enthroned in space--judges, an