The barrels strained and groaned, and broke from their fastenings; the
awning was wrenched from its mooring, and swept away; the bitter brine
broke over us and choked our cries; the anguish of death was upon us
without its submission. We struggled instinctively to breathe, to live;
we grappled desperately with circumstances; we fought against our doom.
Suddenly the sea dropped to rest--the storm was spent; a low, sighing,
soughing gale swept around our nucleus of despair, and the surging of
the sea was like a bitter funeral-wail. The air grew cold and chill; one
vast, pall-like cloud enveloped the whole face of the unpitying
heavens, that seemed literally "to press down upon our very faces like a
roof of black marble."
No moon, no stars, were visible; we had no light of any kind, nor could
we ascertain the damage done until the cold, gray morning broke in gloom
and rain upon us. Then it was made plain to us that our food had all
been swept overboard--together with six seamen and five of the
passengers. There remained on the raft only three shuddering women and a
little child--and a handful of weary and discouraged men, sustained and
led to a sense of duty by the dauntless master-spirit of one alone--the
presence of Christian Garth, indomitable through all hardships. So it
had fared with us for six-and-thirty hours of our experience on "our
floating grave.
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