Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-05

small berg, though large compared with most of the others; yet such mighty volume of foam boiled up as gave me a startling idea of the prodigious weight of the mass The sight made me very anxious about my own state; and to satisfy my mind got upon the ice and walked round the vessel, and to get a true view of her posture went to the ex- treme end of the rocks beyond her bows; and finally came to the conclusion that suppos- ing the ice should cruSlble away from her sides so as to cause the weight of the schooner to render it top heavy, her buoyancy, on touching the water, would certainly tear her keel out of its frosty setting and leave her floating Indeed, so sure was of this that I saw, next to the ice splitting and freeing her in that way, the best thing that could happen would be its capsizal.
 regained the ship, and had paused an in stant to look over the side, when I perceived the very block of ice on which I had come to halt break from the bed with smart clap of noise, and completely roll over. Only a minute before had I been standing on it, and thus had sixty seconds stood between me and death; for most certainly must I have been drowned or killed by being beaten against the ice by the swell I fell upon my knees and lifted up my hands ill gratitude to God, feeling extraordinarily comforted by this further mark of His care of me, and very strongly persuaded that he designed should come off with my life after all, since his providence would not work so many miracles for my preservation if I was to perish by this adventure.
 These thoughts did more for my spirits than can we'll express; and the intolerable sense of loneliness was mitigated by the -1ol fl,ofT E not alone.
 The day passed I know not how. The shadow as of tempest hung in the air, but never a cat's-paw did I see to blur the rolling mirror of the ocean. The hidden sun sank out of the breathless sky, tingeng the atmos- phere with a faint hectic, which quickly yielded to the deepest shade of blackness. The mysterious, desperate silence, however, that on deck weighed progressively on every sense, as something false, menacing, and ma- ignant in these seas, was qualified below by peculiar straininG noises in the schooner's hold, caused by the swinging of the ice upon the swell. was very uneasy; I dreaded a gale. It was impossible but that the vessel must quickly go to pieces in a heavy sea upon the ice if she did not Iberate herself. But though this excited depression melancholy enough, nothing else that 1 can recollect COuCIlDuleu OO It, " Hell l T6Nl6W6u Ule dp- prehension the Frenchman had raised, and reflected how insupportable burden he must have become, was very well satisfied to be alone. Time had fortified me; had passe:i through experiences so surprising, | encountered wonders so preternatural, that superstition lay asleep in my soul, and 1 found nothing to occasion in me the least uneasiness in thinking of the lifeless, shriv- eled figure of what was just now a fierce, ! cowardiy, untaned villain lying in the fore castle.
 made good supper, built up a large fire, and mixed myself hearty bowl of punch, not with the view of drowning my anxieties | God forbid I was too grateful for the past, too expectant of the future, to be capa- | bic of so brutish a folly-but that I might keep myself ill 8 cheerful posture of mind ; | when l was terrified by an extraordinary | loud explosion, that burst so near and rang | with such prodigious clear note of thunder 1 through the schooner that VOW to God l believed the gunpowder belov! had blown up | And in this suspicion I honestly supposed | myself right for moment-for on running l into the cabin 1 was dazzled by a crimson | flame that clothed the whole interior with a wondrous gush of fire; but this being in- stantly followed by such another clap as the other, l understood a thunder storm had broken over the schooner.
 | It was exactly overhead, and that ac- counted for the violence of the crashes which were indeed so extreme that they sounded rather like the splitting of enormous bodies of ice close to than the flight of cleo tric bolts. The hatch lay open; ran on deck; but scarce had passed my head through the companion when down came storm of hail, every stone big as pigeons egg; and in all my time never heard more he'll l ic1 o1o
 The hail fell in straight lines, which the fierce near lightning flashed up into the ap- pearance of giant harpstrings on which the black hand of the night was playing those heavy notes of thunder. I sat in the shelter of the companion, very anxious and alarmed, for there was powder enough in the hold to blow the ship into atoms and the lightning played so continuously and piercingly that it was like a hundred darts of fire, violet, crim- SOD, and sun colored, in the grasp of spirits who thrust at the sea, all over its face, with swift movement of the arms, as though searching for the schooner to spear her.
 The hail storm ceased as suddenly as it had
 burst stepped on to the deck and observed that the storm was settling into the north east, whence concluded that what draught
 that might be up there sat in the southwest.
 Nor I mistaken, for half an hour after
 the first of the outburst, by which time the | lightning played weak and at long intervals
 low down, and the thunder had ceased, felt
 crawling O. air coming out of the south
 west which presently briskened into a small,
 steady blowing, but not for long. It fresh
 ened yet and yet; the wrinkles crisped into
 whiteness on the black heavings; they grew
 into small surges, with sharp, cubbish snarl-
 ings, preludious of the lions voice, and by 10
 o'clock it was blowing in strong squalls, the
 sea rising, and the clouds sailing swiftly in
 smoke colored rags under the stars.
 The posture of the ice inclined the schoon-
 CTS starboard bow to the pillows, and in a
 very short time she was trembling in every
 bone to the blows of the surges which rolled
 boiling over the ice there and struck her,
 flinging dim clouds of spume in the air, which
 soon set the scuppers gushing. My case was
 that of stranded ship, with this difference
 only: that a vessel ashore lies solid to the
 beating of the waves, whereas the ice was
 buoyant it rose and fell, sluggishly, it is true,
 and so somewhat mitigated the severity of
 the shocks of water. But, spite of this, I was
 perfectly sure that unless the bed broke un-
 der her or she slipped off it, she would be in
 pieces before the morning. It was not in any
 hull put together by human hands to resist