en out through him. At
that moment, while Doctor Bowdler stood feebly adjusting his
watch-chain, and eying his companion's back, like one who has found a
panther in a domestic cat, and knows not when he will spring, the
tornado struck the ocean a few feet from their side, cleaving a path for
itself into deep watery walls. There was an instant's reeling and
intense darkness, then the old Doctor tried to gather himself up,
bruised and sick, from the companion-way, where he had been thrown.

"Better lie still," said Birkenshead, in the gentle voice with which he
was used to calm a patient.

The old gentleman managed to sit up on the floor. By the dull glare of
the cabin-lantern he could see the surgeon sitting on the lower rung of
the ladder, leaning forward, holding his head in his hands.

"Strike a light, can't you, Birkenshead? What has happened? Bah! this is
horrible! I have swallowed the sea-water! Hear it swash against the
sides of the boat! Is the boat going to pieces?"

"And there met us 'a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,'" said
Birkenshead, looking up with a curious smile.

"Did there?"--rubbing his shoulder. "I've kept clear of the sea so far,
and I think in future--Hark! what's that?" as through the darkness and
the thunderous surge of the water, and the short, fierce calls of the
men on board, came a low shivering crack, distinct as a human whisper.
"What is it, Birkenshead?" impatiently, when the other made no answer.

"The schooner has struck the bar. She is going to pieces."

The words recalled the old servant of Christ from his insane fright to
himself.

"That means death! does it not?"

"Yes."

The two men stood silent,--Doctor Bowdler with his head bent and eyes
closed. He looked up presently.

"Let us go on deck now and see what we can do,"--turning cheerfully.
"No, there are too many there already."

There was an old tin life-preserver hanging on a hook by the door; the
surgeon climbed up to get it, and began buckling it about the old man in
spite of his remonstrances. The timbers groaned and strained, the boat
trembled like some great beast in its death-agony, settled heavily, and
then the beams on one side of them parted. They stood on a shelving
plank floor, snapped off two feet from them, the yellow sky overhead,
and the breakers crunching their footing away.

"O God!" cried Bowdler, when he looked out at the sea. He was not a
brave man; and he could not see it, when he looked; t