ht in the teeth of the gap, and as it proceeded to widen, we shot
through it, with the surf leaping and tossing on either hand high above
our heads. This stroke could have been possible only to a steersman
possessed of herculean strength, combined with the rarest daring and
coolness; and, as the result of these qualities, it was exceedingly
effective. It lessened the danger of our being capsized almost entirely.
Indeed, the sole mishap that was threatened by so doing, was the
liability to being swamped by the falling fragments of the breakers;
but this peril old Bill declared we might safely trust he would also
avert. It being the nature of humanity to experience a mood of high
exaltation with the surmounting of any serious obstacle, we now worked
our way with minds light and cheery, and with all thoughts of anything
like fatigue completely forgotten. Though our course was on the whole a
zigzag one, and though we certainly met with one or two serious rebuffs,
we were constantly gaining headway, and in something over an hour forced
the last line of the breakers, and stemmed what on ordinary occasions
would have been simply the blue body of the Atlantic. But even here a
huge commotion was reigning, though our progress was far less tedious
than it had previously been; and with about another hour's labor we were
alongside the wreck, and had climbed to her deck.

The plight of the vessel was mournful enough. She had evidently been
built for a three-masted schooner, but, as Bill had observed when he
first obtained a view of her, everything about her was well-nigh gone
save her hull. Her bulwarks had been thoroughly crushed, and so the sea
had successively torn away her boats, shivered her galley and
wheelhouse, and filled her cabin and hold. Her masts were also
destroyed, the fore and mizzen masts being carried away from their
steppings, and the main-mast broken completely in twain just above the
cross-trees. But a sight still more desolate, as well as harrowing, yet
awaited us, as, in overhauling the sail-encumbered shrouds of the
partially standing mast, we discovered several ice-bound figures rigidly
hanging therein, which, being cut away and lowered to our boat, proved
to be the body of a negro perfectly stark and dead, and three most
pitiable white sailors, whose life was so far extinguished that they
could neither move hand nor foot, nor utter more than the feeblest
moans.

When we had covered the face of the dead and