The Wildfire Club - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

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OK Tn .81'IBIT BBIDJ:.
Dl,Ilster, completely- unprepared for this visitation, but with
a dim perception of a still greater calamity yet in store,
ordered some spare hands to try the pumps, with a view
-of ascertaining whether the second part of the mysterious
prophecy had, in reality, as terrible a foundation in truth
as the fir,t.
The report which he received was appalliDg. The ship
not only leaked, but was in imminent danger of foundering.
" To my cabin - beneath the lamp! Search! search I
search!" cried the distracted skipper.
But all was in vain. The leak was discovered to have
originated in the very locality described; but the knowledge
came too late.
"One hour earlier would have saved us!" cried the
sailing master. " 0, why was this secret kept back 80
long? "
Between the thunder of the enemy's guns, the roar of
the booming' ocean, now rising in the wild majesty of a
terrific storm, the groans of the dying, and the incessant
clatter of the no,," useless pumps, - in the very fever and
crash of death, destruction, and despair, -the young
sllilor, toiling amid blood and carnage, was recalled from
the hideous fever of life around him, to the better sphere
of life eternal, by the low but thrilling, long, long chord
of far-oft' celestial harmony, while the sweet, viewle88
voice, close to his very ear, made itself heard above the
din and warfare, murmuring, -
" Be of good cheer: thou art safe! Thy spirit bride is
here! "
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