to self-control and trust.  Then calmly they rested, side by side, exchanging kindly partings and sending messages to friends, if any should survive to be their bearer.  Meanwhile, the boats having been swamped or carried away, and the carpenter’s tools washed overboard, the crew had retreated to the top-gallant forecastle; but, as the passengers saw and heard nothing of them, they supposed that the officers and crew had deserted the ship, and that they were left alone.  Thus passed three hours.

At length, about seven, as there were signs that the cabin would soon break up, and any death seemed preferable to that of being crushed among the ruins, Mrs. Hasty made her way to the door, and, looking out at intervals between the seas as they swept across the vessel amidships, saw some one standing by the foremast.  His face was toward the shore.  She screamed and beckoned, but her voice was lost amid the roar of the wind and breakers, and her gestures were unnoticed.  Soon, however, Davis, the mate, through the door of the forecastle caught sight of her, and, at once comprehending the danger, summoned the men to go to the rescue.  At first none dared to risk with him the perilous attempt; but, cool and resolute, he set forth by himself, and now holding to the bulwarks, now stooping as the waves combed over, he succeeded in reaching the cabin.  Two sailors, emboldened by his example, followed.  Preparations were instantly made to conduct the passengers to the forecastle, which, as being more strongly built and lying further up the sands, was the least exposed part of the ship.  Mrs. Hasty volunteered to go the first.  With one hand clasped by Davis, while with the other each grasped the rail, they started, a sailor moving close behind.  But hardly had they taken three steps, when a sea broke loose her hold, and swept her into the hatch-way.  “Let me go,” she cried, “your life is important to all on board.”  But cheerily, and with a smile,[B] he answered, “Not quite yet;” and, seizing in his teeth her long hair, as it floated past him, he caught with both hands at some near support, and, aided by the seaman, set her once again upon her feet.  A few moments more of struggle brought them safely through.  In turn, each of the passengers was helped thus laboriously across the deck, though, as the broken rail and cordage had at one place fallen in the way, the passage was dangerous and difficult in the extreme.  Angelino was borne in a canvas bag, slung round the neck of a sailor.  Within the forecastle, which was comparatively dry and sheltered, they now seated themselves, and, wrapped in the loose overcoats of the seamen, regained some warmth.  Three times more, however, the mate made his way to the cabin; once, to save her late husband’s watch, for Mrs. Hasty; again for some doubloons, money-drafts, and rings in Margaret’s desk; and, finally, to procure a bottle of wine and a drum of figs for their refreshment.  It was after his last return, that Margaret said to Mrs. Hasty, “There still remains what, if I live, will be of more value to me than anything,” referring, probably, to her manuscript on Italy; but it seemed too selfish to ask their brave preserver to run the risk again.