he flash. The
forecastle was deserted to a man, and the hillock of freight was again
darkly seen peopled with crouching human forms. Just then the bark which
had so long lain in a state of complete rest slowly and heavily raised its
bows, as if laboring under its great and unusual burthen, while a sluggish
swell passed beneath its entire length, lifting the whole mass, foot by
foot, and passing away by the stern, to cast itself on the shores of Vaud.

"'Tis madness to waste the precious moments longer!" said Maso hurriedly,
on whom this plain and intelligent hint was not lost. "Signori, we must be
bold and prompt, or we shall be overtaken by the tempest unprepared. I
speak not for myself, since, by the aid of this faithful dog, and favored
by my own arms, I have always the shore for a hope. But there is one in
the bark I would wish to save, even at some hazard to myself. Baptiste is
unnerved by fear, and we must act for our selves or perish!"

"What wouldest thou?" demanded the Signor Grimaldi; "he that can proclaim
the danger should have some expedient to divert it?"

"More timely exertion would have given us the resource of ordinary means;
but, like those who die in their sins, we have foolishly wasted most
precious minutes. We must lighten the bark, though it cost the whole of
her freight."

A cry from Nicklaus Wagner announced that the spirit of avarice was still
active as ever in his bosom. Even Baptiste, who had lost all his dogmatism
and his disposition to command, under the imposing omens which had now
made themselves apparent even to him, loudly joined in the protest against
this waste of property. It is rare that any sudden and extreme proposal,
like this of Maso's, meets with a quick echo in the judgments of those to
whom the necessity is unexpectedly presented. The danger did not seem
sufficiently imminent to have recourse to an expedient so decided; and,
though startled and aroused, the untamed spirits of those who crowded
the, menaced pile were rather in a state of uneasiness, than of that
fierce excitement to which they were so capable of being wrought, and
which was in some degree necessary to induce even them, thriftless and
destitute as they were, to be the agents of effecting so great a
destruction of properly. The project of the cool and calculating Maso
would therefore have failed entirely, but for another wheeling of those
airy squadrons, and a second wave which lifted the groaning bark until the