Without much difficulty, the two men climbed to the forecastle of the vessel, which was still above the water. Doubtless Mr. Carboy was right in regard to the position of the wreck on the rocks, but the sea dashed furiously against the broken end of the hulk. The hurricane renewed its violence, and as the tide rose, the waves swept over the two men. But the rising sea did worse than this for them. It loosened the cargo, consisting in part of hogsheads of molasses; and they rolled down into the deep water. Relieved of this weight, the tide lifted the wreck from between the rocks; the hulk rolled over and disappeared beneath the white-crowned waves, dragging the whale-boat down with it. The movement was so sudden that the mate and the passenger had no time to save themselves, if there had been any means of doing so, and they went down with the wreck. After a hard struggle for life, they perished.

Harvey Barth alone was spared, and he rested on the flat rock in the ravine till his wasted breath and meagre strength were regained. Then he continued his weary ascent till he reached the summit of the cliffs, where he saw the boat made fast to the wreck, and the mate and passenger clinging to the forestay. In the next glare of the lightning, with a thrill of horror, he saw the hulk topple over and disappear in the mad waves.

Harvey Barth, the sick man, was the only one of the dozen persons on board of the Waldo who was left alive in half an hour after the hurricane burst upon her; and she was not the only vessel that foundered or was dashed upon the rocks in that terrific storm, nor the only one from whose crew only a single life was spared. The tempest and the lightning had done their work; and when it was done, the dark clouds rolled away, the lightning glared no more, the winds subsided, and the sea was calm again. Later in the night, the wind came cold and fresh from the north-west, and swept away from the narrow beach the wounded body of Burns, and nearly every vestige of the wreck. The rising sun of the next morning revealed hardly a trace of the terrible disaster.

CHAPTER III.

"HARVEY BARTH, HIS DIARY."

Harvey Barth stood on the high cliff and wept; not in a poetical sense, but cried like a little child, and the hot tears burned on his cold, thin pale cheeks. Captain 'Siah had always used him well; the rough mate had been kind to him; and the seamen, most of whom, like himself, were farmers' sons, had been friendly during the three months they were together. Even the passenger often seated himself in the galley to talk with him, as he smoked his pipe. Now they were all gone. So far as Harvey knew, every one of them, from the captain to the humblest seaman, had perished, either by the bolt from the clouds or in the mad waters. It was barely possible that the mate or passenger had escaped from the wreck on which they had taken refuge, as they had the whale-boat with them.

Harvey Barth, who had often told his shipmates that he had not much longer to live, was the only one saved from the whole ship's company. It seemed to him very strange that he should be spared while so many stronger men had been suddenly swept away. He dared not believe that any one else had been saved, and he could not but regard himself as a monument of the mercy, as well as of the mysterious ways of Providence. He thanked God from the depths of his heart that he was saved, and he was almost willing to believe that he might yet escape the fate to which his malady had doomed him.

The hurricane subsided almost as suddenly as it had commenced; the sea abated its violence, and the booming thunder was heard only in the distance. The black clouds rolled away from the westward, and the stars sparkled in the blue sky. The steward was wet to the skin, and he shivered with cold. Where he was he had not the least idea. On the distant shore he could see the light-houses, but what points of land they marked he did not know. He was on the solid land, and that was the sum total of his information. He was well nigh worn out by the exertions and the excitement of the evening, but, turning his back to the treacherous ocean which had swallowed up all his friends, he walked as rapidly as his strength would admit, in order to warm himself by the exercise. From the cliffs the land sloped upward, but he soon reached the top of the hill, on which he paused to take an observation. From the point where he stood there was a much sharper descent before him than on the side by which he had come up. At the foot of the hill he saw two lights, then a sheet of water, and beyond a multitude of lights indicating a considerable village.

The nearest light appeared not to be over half a mile distant, and the pale moon came out from behind the piles of black clouds to guide his steps. The cold north-west wind had begun to blow, and it chilled the wanderer to his very bones. He quickened his steps down the declivity, and soon reached a rude, one-story dwelling, at the door of which he knocked. He saw the light in the house, but no one answered his summons, and he repeated it more vigorously than before. Then a window was cautiously thrown open a few inches.

"Who's there?" asked a woman.

"A stranger," replied Harvey, shivering with cold, so that he could hardly utter the words.

"My husband's over to the village, and I can't let no strangers in at this time of night," added the woman.

"I've been cast away on the coast, and I'm really suffering," drawled the steward, in broken sentences.

"Cast away!" exclaimed the wife of the man who was over at the village, as she dropped the sash.

The terrible storm which had spent its fury upon sea and land was enough to convince her that men might have been shipwrecked; and this was not the first time that those treacherous ledges off High Rock, as the cliff was called, had shattered a good vessel. The woman hastened to the door, and threw it wide open. The pale, shivering form of Harvey Barth, the overcoat he wore still dripping with water, was enough to satisfy her that the visitor had no evil intentions.

"Come in," said she; and when the steward saw the comfortable room in the house, he required no second invitation. "Why, you are shivering with cold!"

"Yes marm; I'm not very well, and getting wet don't agree with me," replied Harvey, his teeth still chattering.

The room to which he was shown was the parlor, sitting-room, and kitchen of the cottage. On the hearth was a large cooking-stove, in which the woman immediately lighted a fire. She piled on the dry wood till the stove was full, and in a few moments the room was as hot as the oven of the stove.

"It's no use," said the housekeeper, who had seated herself to rock the cradle; "you are wet through to your skin; and you can't get warm till you put on dry clothes."

She went to a closet and took out her husband's Sunday clothes a woolen undershirt, and a pair of thick socks. Harvey thought of Paradise when he saw them, for he was so chilled that to be warm again seemed to him the climax of earthly joy. The woman laid them on the bed in an adjoining chamber, and then begged him to put them on. He needed no urging, and soon his trembling limbs were encased in the warm, dry clothes. The coat and pants were much too short for him, but otherwise they fitted very well. When he came out of the chamber, with his wet clothes in his hands, he found a cup of hot tea on the table waiting for him.

"Now drink this," said his kind host. "It will help to