Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

narrow channel between the island and the shore. On either side dark woods lined the banks, and mingled their shadows in the water, adding to the obscurity of the twilight hour, and even at noonday excluding the full light of the sun. There was something in the scene that rather resembled the narrow inlet of some sequestered lake, than a portion of the Mississippi, that much-frequented, though trackless thoroughfare. The steam-boat broke through straggling boughs of the water-willow, in her progress, and scared flocks of small birds from their sylvan haunts; while the red-headed woodpecker was disturbed from his evening meal on a log of decayed timber at the water's edge. In a few minutes they reached the lower end of the island, where the broad current of the river again opened before them, now smooth as a mirror, and reflecting as faithfully the purple hues left by the sun upon the thickly-gathering clouds. These, too, faded away, and night came on, still and dark; so still, that each snort of the engine resounded down the edge of the forests, and seemed magnified into an impetuous roar; and so dark, that little was discernible beyond the misty glare round the boat, reflected from its numerous lights. To the experienced eye of the pilot, indeed, as he stood aloft at the wheel, the course of the river was far off visible through the gloom, as well as the dim outline of the wood against the cloudy sky.

In the cabins, all was silent. The passengers had retired to rest, and confident in the prudence and skill of the captain and his officers, slept profoundly; or if an anxious eye now and then opened and peered out into the darkness, it soon closed again, content with the quietness that reigned around. Thus midnight found all sunk in their first deep sleep, except the officers at their posts, and the hands employed about the machinery and the fires.

This stillness of the elements, this profound repose of the sleepers, was disturbed by a shock, a thundering crash, that might break any rest, but the last which 'knows no waking.' The passengers, as with one accord, started from their berths, with a dreamy, instinctive sense of pressing danger. There was a sudden hurrying and trampling to and fro, and a confused murmur of many voices mingling in hasty exclamations and hoarse imprecations; in questions that no one paused to answer, and cries of alarm that passed unheeded. The only remaining light was overturned and extinguished in the tumult that followed; and as all rushed to the door-ways, they encountered each other with violence, or fell headlong over the furniture; and in the blind zeal of self-preservation, grappled with each obstacle as with a mortal foe. Then came another crash, and the boat groaned and trembled; and louder grew the din of voices, more clamorous the cries of terror; and a set of half-dressed, bewildered mortals crowded out, to learn with certainty the full and dire extent of the impending danger.

To the officers on watch, and those engaged in the fore part of the boat, it was only too evident that the vessel was lost. She had struck on a snag, and being driven forward by the full power of the steam, it had forced its way through every obstacle, until it pierced the boiler deck, where the long log appeared, slanting up between the chimnies. They were now in deep water, not far from the

[blocks in formation]

'Twas n't the b'ar did that!' said he, staring incredulous. 'I know'd he would n't hurt nobody,' he continued, with a satisfied air, after ascertaining the truth. Little missy there hurt her own face. She was running like mad, I reckon, caase she was scared, and pitched right ag'in a stump. The b'ar could not help that,' he concluded, with a laugh, which, seen rather than heard, revealed his tobacco-stained teeth, and the huge quid on which they had been performing.

It was the bear helped push me down, I know,' sobbed little Anna, for I felt his great nasty paws on my back!'

[ocr errors]

'Never mind, Miss Annie,' said Steven, coaxingly, as he lifted the little girl in his arms, to carry her back to the boat: Do n't fret, my pretty beauty; we 'll go back and have some nice new milk for breakfast. Steven stopped short, for lo! the pitcher was broken, and his treasure of new milk watered the plain,' as Paddy has it.

If that big rascal was killed and made into bacon,' said the cook, shaking his right arm pugnaciously toward the bear, and if his' owner was sarved the same, it would be a good thing for the steamboats on the Massissippi, I reckon;' and farther venting his spleen, by kicking the fragments of his pitcher in the same direction that his would-be fist had been brandished, he very good-humoredly descended to the boat, comforting little Anna with promises of good things in store for her.

A BRIGHT day was drawing to a close, and the fitful wind which had been driving the autumn leaves in capricious eddies across the river, or scattering them in golden showers upon its surface, died away as the sun went down, and left a heaviness in the atmosphere, which gathering into thick clouds, threatened a night of unusual darkness, if not of storm.

Let me dwell for a moment on the scene through which the Lord of the Isles' was now moving for the last time. Let me hang on the last rays of the sun, which then looked his last on the beautiful boat, or rose only to behold her a sinking and disabled wreck. Her commander was standing near the wheel, and his wife had seated herself apart, to study undisturbed the features of a scene so new to her. On one side, a recent growth of cotton-wood was springing up on the low shore, to the very edge of the still, shallow water; on the other, large forest trees, their roots laid bare by the vexed tide,' were spreading their giant arms over the curling boils' and eddies, as though preparing for the plunge that sooner or later must overwhelm them. Lower down, this sweeping current set strong on the point of a low island, and there deposited enormous piles of driftwood, which lying on the narrow strand in tangled masses, mingled j logs and boughs of dead timber with the live brush-wood, while fallen trees, and sticks, and poles, of every size and shane, were still rolling in the stream, or gradually embedding sand-bank, forming above the head of the is these, lay the wreck of a large

[graphic]
[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

middle of the stream, in one of its wide bends, and the first impulse was to run the vessel on shore, without a moment's delay. Shove her in to shore! Shove her in to shore!' was shouted on all sides; but the strokes of the engine died away suddenly, and it was thought that the water, which was pouring in, had reached the fires, or that some injury had disabled the machinery. No doubt remained that the case was a desperate one, and many a strong man there would have thrown himself into the river, and sought immediate safety by swimming to shore; but the intense darkness, the danger of the unknown currents! Oh, it was like plunging into the grave!

There was but one chance left- the small boat: it was lashed up at the stern, and thither rushed the panic-stricken crowd. This wild impulse had been anticipated; to explain in what manner, I must go back in my story a few minutes, or rather seconds - a few brief seconds of agony and suspense.

When the vessel struck, Mrs. Hartwell was among the first who felt the fatal shock. She had been quieting little Anna, who was ill and fretful, and was awake, therefore, and had her full senses about her at the moment. From the violence of the concussion, and the crash and confusion that immediately followed, she felt sure that something dreadful had happened; and fear came upon her, but with it came the spirit and the power to rise above it. She darted from the state-room with the child in her arms, and gave her in charge of the chambermaid, whom she discovered by the light of the lamp in the ladies' cabin. The woman was wailing and wringing her hands; and after silencing her with earnest gestures, Mrs. Hartwell leading the way, dragged her after her through the door, which she locked on the outside; then turning to the chambermaid, she spoke quietly and distinctly, though her voice trembled, and when she laid her hand on the woman's arm, it was as cold as marble.

'Mrs. Tompkins,' she said, 'we must secure the boat, before any of the people take possession of it. It may be the means of saving all our lives. Do you stand close by me, and take care of my little girl; do not scream, nor cry, to frighten her, and you shall be among the very first to go on shore.'

Theirs was an upper cabin, and within a few feet of the outer door hung the boat with its lashings. Unfastening the rope, so that a yard or two hung loose, she wound it tightly round her arm, and clasping it with her delicate hand, resolved to hold it, if possible, against all odds, until her husband came to take the command. This was done before the passengers became aware of the extremity of their danger; but the captain saw at a glance that all was lost, but the lives of those committed to his care; and to preserve them, by every effort in his power, was now his only object. On his first mate he could entirely depend; and on him he called to go with him aft, and take command of the small boat. Handing him a pistol, he desired him to use it, if necessary, to intimidate any who offered violence to his orders. More than a hundred lives,' he continued, 'depend upon our exertions: in God's name, let us endeavor to save every one!'

The cook, too, had been ordered to run aft with a torch; and as Hartwell and his mate reached the stern, the light appeared casting a fitful glare over the water, and glancing faintly against the woods

on shore, to reach which was now the sole desire of every breast. It shone over the waters, and threw an uncertain light round the sinking vessel, and over the groups clustering on her deck, and crowding the guards, and revealed to Captain Hartwell's eyes a sight that almost unmanned him.

His wife was literally defending the boat against two or three cowardly ruffians, from the deck, who, by alternate threats and persuasions, endeavored to make her quit her hold. She had run out in her night-dress, and her hair, which had escaped from her head-gear, was waving in long tresses round her shoulders; and as she dared her assailants to use violence, one small white foot was advanced with an air of firm resolve, and she looked as one might fancy the Lady of Douglas did, when she desperately barred the door with her arm against the assassins of her king, as though she would rather it were severed from her body, than give up her trust.

'My brave girl!' replied the captain, 'keep the command a moment longer, till I heave these villains overboard!'

I can settle them, Sir; jist leave them to me, if you please, Sir,' said Big Steven, as he disposed of his torch in a place of safety; and seizing one with the gripe of a Hercules, he dexterously dealt another a blow on the temple, which the sufferer ever after believed to have come from the heavy knob of an oaken stick, or the butt-end of a pistol.

Need it be stated how the captain, pistol in hand, held the panicstricken passengers in awe, while the boat, under command of the mate, was seen, crowded with ladies, shooting toward the shore; how it returned, and returned again, until all were saved?

'I SHALL never remember that affair, without mortification,' said Mrs. Hartwell to her husband, as they were afterward talking the matter over. With some surprise, he inquired why.

'To think,' said she, holding down her head, while her eyes filled with tears, 'to think how I stood, bare-foot and exposed in my nightclothes, before all those people !'

'My dear girl!' cried her husband, catching her in his arms, 'I never saw you look so beautiful!'

THE NAUTILUS.

WHEN We behold this tiny creature sail,
Upborne and flowing on the buoyant tide,
Expand the lucid sheet to catch the gale,
And pump the waters from its leaky side;
Or, curious, see it dip its filmy oar,

And spread its pearly shell across the wave,
Desert its hull, a shipwreck on the shore,

Or the deep caverns of the ocean brave;
These various instincts wonderful appear:
Yet far more strange, when in this fact we find,
That hence was taught the mariner to steer,
To stretch the canvass, and invoke the wind:
The INDUSTRY thou deign'st to man impart,
May he improve, and use with thankful heart.

« AnteriorContinua »