in the performance of their arduous duties. But nothing could induce him to return the taunts this young officer sometimes bestowed on him with disrespectful language. Depending on the justice of his captain, he bore all in unmoved silence; indeed, his Lordship (who considered Philip as too much his inferior to give him the opportunity of joining in a warfare of words) never condescended to address any provoking speeches to him, but always at him. One would have thought that such frightful circumstances would have tamed the haughtiest minds; but they both required still severer trials to wring the black spot from their hearts.

The ship, in this perilous state, was in the middle of the great Atlantic, nearly under the equinoctial line, with the water-casks beat to pieces, and most of the provisions spoiled; so that if, by especial providence, the ship should swim, so as to reach a port on the Brazilian coast, the crew would suffer the most cruel hardships from thirst—painful at all times, but intolerable in these burning latitudes. In this dilemma, some of the people descried land; and they hoped it was one of those small islands on which the Portuguese have little settlements to supply their ships, which trade to Africa, with water and needful refreshments. This island, like those of St. Helena and Ascension, appeared rocky and volcanic; but there were good hopes that springs of water might be discovered on it, if any of the crew could be found enterprising enough to effect a landing, with such a sea, and on such a coast; for, though the gale had lulled, the breakers were furiously high on the shore.

Lord Robert Summers, daring and ardent, and much preferring danger to the lingering agonies of thirst, volunteered to command a boat, if any of the crew would venture themselves under his guidance. Three of the most experienced seamen offered to man the boat; but five hands were indispensable. His Lordship said that he himself would steer the boat, if one more seaman would venture. Philip Harley volunteered his assistance. "Any one but him!" muttered Lord Robert between his shut teeth, incensed that Philip should show that his courage was equal to his own: however, as his services were offered for the public good, he thought proper, although very unwillingly and ungraciously, to accept them, and the boat was lowered. Sir Henry Stanley bade adieu to his gallant nephew with pain; but he did not attempt to withhold him, dear as he was, from the benefit he was proposing to render the ship's company. When the boat got among the breakers, the prospect of landing appeared so hazardous, that one of the oldest of the seamen, who rowed the boat, proposed returning to the ship. Lord Robert, considering himself accountable for the lives of the men under his care, would not insist on their continuing their efforts, but said:

"My brave fellows! If the attempt seem to you hopeless, I will not urge you to continue it; but if my single life only were at stake I would willingly risk it to obtain a supply of water for our famishing companions."

The sailors then determined to persevere, their recent sufferings from thirst being fresh in their minds. At length, by a desperate effort, they gained the shore, and landed their water-casks. They soon found a pure spring, which gushed from a rocky hill at some little distance from the shore: there was a large wooden cross erected on an eminence, at the spring head; but they found no Portuguese guard at the spring, which is usual in a settlement in those latitudes; so they presumed the island was uninhabited. The land seemed barren, rocky, and desolate; but, after some research, they found, in a sheltered valley, a few fine lime and cocoa-nut trees, which had evidently been planted by some beneficent navigator. Gathering cocoa-nuts is no very easy operation, as they adhere in close bunches to the crown of the tree by tough ligaments; but as young Harley had brought his axe and saw to cut wood for firing, he climbed the trees, while his comrades were filling the water-casks, and expeditiously obtained a good number, both of limes and cocoa-nuts, which he considered would be an acceptable refreshment to his exhausted companions on board the Diomede.

While they were thus employed, Lord Robert hailed them from the beach, where he remained to watch the boat.

"Come, my lads!" said he, "the gale freshens every minute; let us get afloat, or we shall scarcely reach the ship before nightfall."

The sailors hurried the water-casks and store of fruit into the boat, and launched her among the breakers. With infinite toil, they got out of the surf with safety, as the wind now blew off the shore; but the furious gusts came every moment with increasing strength; and, at last, a surge rose with such overwhelming violence, that, in spite of all their efforts, the boat upset, and her unhappy crew were engulfed in the roaring waters. Their fate was beheld from the ship; but no aid could be given, as the renewed hurricane had rendered her state more deplorable than ever: she was driven before the wind, and soon lost sight of this fatal island.

Some of the boat's crew struggled a little time with the waves; but three of them were old men, and had been exhausted by the fatigues they had lately undergone. These speedily sank; but Lord Robert, being young and robust, strove hard for life, and at length gained the shore, almost exhausted by his contentions with the surfy breakers. When he had a little recovered his breath, he climbed the hill on which the cross was erected, and gazed towards the ship, which he saw driving before the wind, surrounded by foaming billows, and with every appearance of speedily sharing the fate he had so lately escaped. Wholly occupied in the thoughts of the revered friend that ship contained, he forgot his own desolate state, till the last appearance of the ship vanished, and he found himself alone.

Oppressed with sad thoughts, he turned himself from the contemplation of the wrathful ocean, now blackening with the sudden night of the torrid zone, and after a little search, found a low arch in the rock, which was the entrance to a natural hollow in its side. Into this place he crept, to shelter himself from the inclemency of the storm, which increased with tenfold fury after sunset.

In this situation he passed the night which succeeded this dismal day. It was a night of peculiar horror—tempestuous, dark, and rainy; and Lord Robert, though in a state of complete exhaustion, found that, in his late struggle with the breakers, he had received so many bruises, that to sleep was impossible. At intervals, as the lightning gleamed on the stormy expanse of waters before him, he thought how many of his brave companions, in all probability, slept beneath its roaring waves; and at that moment, instead of returning thanks to Heaven for his own preservation, he felt inclined to envy his comrades. To be entirely shut out from all intercourse with his fellow-creatures, never again to hear the sound of a human voice, and to be condemned, in the very bloom of youth, to pine away existence in that desolate place, far from every friend, appeared a doom so dreadful, that he was insensibly led to reflect for what crime so heavy a punishment could have befallen him.

Conscience, which sometimes sleeps, but never dies, did not fail, in this awful hour, to recall to his memory the cruelty and injustice of his conduct to Philip Harley: and when he reflected that, to gratify his imperious disposition and implacable spirit of revenge, the poor lad had been dragged from his peaceful home, his honest employment, and his affectionate parents, to endure a series of hardships and perils, and that he had finally suffered an untimely death,—this thought gave him so keen a pang of remorse, that, as if he expected from change of place to escape from memory, he started from his rocky pillow, and, as the day was now beginning to dawn, proceeded to the beach, to ascertain whether any of his friends from the ship had been so fortunate as to gain the shore; for,