So adjured, a man, whose wild, fanatical appearance had given rise to the rumor that the famous “Lorenzo Dow” was on board, sprang on a bulkhead, and commenced to exhort the crowd about him, from which a file of pale, determined-looking men was slowly emerging to join the seamen at the other end of the vessel in their efforts for the public weal.  But many lingered, either overcome and paralyzed by the stringency of circumstances, or unequal to exertions from personal causes—­aged men, women, and children, chiefly—­and to these the frenzied speaker continued to address his words of exhortation and warning.

Such a tirade of terrible objurgation I felt was entirely out of place in a scene like this, and calculated to excite the worst passions of the human mind, instead of persuading it to serenity and submission, so essential now; for to me the captain’s last words represented the final grace of the preacher, when, with closed eyes and outspread hands, he dismissed his flock from the temple at the close of the services.  From that vessel and all that concerned it we were virtually enfranchised from that moment—­dismissed to destruction, so to speak, by fire or flood, or rescue from beyond, as the case might be, to life or death, as God willed—­for the ship’s mission was accomplished.

I shrank as far as possible from the wild, waving arms, the frenzied eyes, the gaunt and wolfish aspect, the piercing, agonized voice of the fanatic, who had assumed to himself the solemn office of soul-comforter in a time of extremity.  I saw from a distance his long, lank figure writhing like a sapling in a storm, as it overtopped the crowd; but his words were lost on my ear, and I sat leaning back against the bulwark with folded hands, absorbed in my own thoughts, when a young girl, bursting from the throng, came and threw herself down before me, and buried her face in my lap, convulsed with sobs.  When she looked up, I recognized the young person who had bathed my face in the morning during my partial swoon—­a fair and lovely-looking girl of about eighteen years, pallid and ill now with excitement.

“Oh, it is so terrible!” she cried; “I cannot—­cannot bear it, and he says we are all hopelessly lost unless we have repented; that there is no death-bed salvation; and this is our death-bed, you know, for the Spanish ship passed us without stopping, and we scarcely hope to see another.  O cruel, cruel fiends! to pretend they did not understand our signals, and leave us to destruction.”

And she clasped her hands in mute and bitter despair—­no actress was ever so impressive.

“We must make up our minds to the worst,” I said, as calmly as I could.  “Then, if God sees fit to deliver us, we shall be all the more thankful.  You must not believe what this ignorant and panic-stricken man tells you.  Think of the thief on the cross whom Christ pardoned in dying.”

“Then you hope to be permitted to see God!  You dare to hope this?” she asked, gazing into my very eyes, so closely did she come to me.