in her hold once having ignited, no human
means could extinguish the conflagration. He looked for his boat. A
boy alone was in her; the men, as was to be expected, had gone off to a
wine-house, and only just having heard that a ship was on fire, came
reeling down to the quay, uttering exclamations of surprise when they
discovered that she was their own. Having tumbled into the boat they
were sufficiently sober to row, and Ralph ordering them to shove off,
steered for the unfortunate _Eagle_. Numerous boats were moving about,
and some around her, and he hoped, therefore, that the people on board
had been rescued. It made him fear, however, that all hope of saving
the ship had been abandoned. Still it was his duty to get on board if
he could, to ascertain that every possible effort had been made. He had
passed through an outer circle of native boats, and was dashing on, when
he was hailed by a man-of-war's boat, but not hearing what was said, he
was still continuing his course, and would soon have been close to the
ship, when there came a thundering report as if a whole broadside had
been fired. Her mizen mast shot up into the air, followed by a large
portion of the afterpart of her deck and bulwarks and interior fittings;
some parts in large pieces, others rent into numberless burning
fragments, which hung suspended in the air, and then in a thick fiery
shower came hissing down into the water, the lighter bits reaching
considerably beyond where the boats lay. Ralph had scarcely time even
to get his boat round before the shattered pieces of burning wood began
to fall thickly round his boat, threatening in an instant to sink her,
and to kill any one who might be struck. Happily no one was hurt. The
downfall of the wreck ceased; still the fire in the forepart of the ship
was raging on, when the bows and bowsprit rose in the air surrounded by
flames which, tapering up into a vast cone of fire, suddenly disappeared
as, the stern sinking first, the water swept over the remainder of this
hapless ship, and all was instantly dark, except here and there where
the smouldering ends of spars and planks floated above the calm surface
of the harbour. Ralph with a sad heart pulled on board the _Falcon_,
feeling himself reduced from the position of captain of a fine ship to
that of a master's assistant; and what weighed still more on his
spirits, that he had no longer the prospect of returning to England and
to his dear Jessie