The young girl, of whom I have spoken as having attached herself to me
during the last moments of my stay on shipboard, and an old negro woman,
whose crooning hymns made a strange accompaniment to the dashing waters,
and whose stolid tranquillity seemed to reproach my anguish, were our
only companions on the sort of dais assigned to his female passengers by
Christian Garth.
The man himself, to whom we owed our deliverance, stood near his
primitive mast, trimming his sail carefully, and looking out with his
far-reaching, sagacious ken over the waste of waters, into which the
blood-red, full-orbed sun seemed dipping, suddenly, as for his
night-bath.
A few of the 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.
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