in a rage, crying: " "Well, if she won't blow up,
I'il see if I can't get away from her!" He
reached the boat in safety and escaped.

Three out of the six boats of the Kent were
stove in, or swamped, during the day; one was
full of men, who, it was supposed, had plundered
the cuddy- cabins, and sank sooner from the
weight of their ill-gotten spoil, which they now
probably considered had become common
property.

The danger was now increasing at a terrible
rate. Darkness was coming on, and the
flames were slowly but perceptibly extending.
Colonel Fearon and Captain Cobb, therefore,
felt fresh measures must be at once
taken. A rope was slung from the end of
the spanker-boom, and along this slippery
spar, nineteen feet from the stern, the soldiers
had to crawl and slide down into the boats
that were tossing wildly some thirty feet
below. If the man dropping failed to seize the
right moment for falling, he swung in the air,
fell into the sea, or was crushed by the returning
boat. Dreading the dangers, many of
the soldiers, now less restrained, threw
themselves out of the stern windows, and were
frequently drowned before reaching the boats.
Rafts made of spars and hencoops were
constructed and thrown overboard to help these
fugitives, and to become a last point of retreat if the
flames spread faster. The men were also
advised to tie ropes round their waists, in order
to lash themselves to the rafts. Even at this
crisis the soldiers were scrupulous in asking
leave before they cut the cordage from the
officers' cots, and some of them, having
discovered a box of oranges, would not slake their
thirst till their officers had taken their share.

The officers began to leave the ship in
prescribed order, with rigid discipline, and
intrepid coolness —- neither hurrying impatiently,
nor ostentatiously refusing to go. A thoughtful
man, who afterwards recorded his observations,
mentions that, amongst the sufferers, there
seemed no degrees of courage between high
fortitude and frenzied cowardice. There
appeared to be but two classes — those whose
minds were raised to heroic endurance, and
those who seemed paralysed, or driven into
delirium by the sudden pressure and agony of
an unusual danger. In the course of the day,
many, however, who had been agitated and
timid in the morning, rose by a great internal
effort into positive distinction for courage, while
others, at first cool and brave, appeared
suddenly to experience a physical reaction and a
collapse, and cast their minds prostrate before
the danger.

Just at this time all eyes were fixed on the red
setting sun. Should they ever again see it rise?
was the thought preying at every heart. The
cuddy, so lately the scene of kindly intercourse
and gaiety, was now full of smoke, and deserted
by all but a few men, who lay drunk on the
floor, stupidly heedless of danger, or who prowled
about like beasts of prey in search of plunder.
Sofas, cabinets, and desks, lay shattered in a
thousand pieces. Geese and fowls that had got
loose were cackling with hunger; while a solitary
pig, broken from its sty in the forecastle,
was vainly routing at the Brussels carpet in
one of the cabins.

As night advanced, the alarm and impatience
increased tenfold. The timid and cowardly filled
the air with their groundless or exaggerated
reports of the fire. The soldiers began to tie towels
and white linen round their heads, in order to
be sooner recognised in the water; the sailors,
more nimble, cool, and ready, had nearly all
effected their escape. In the dreadful intervals
between the boats (three-quarters of an hour),
men, after a period of brooding, would burst
forth into long lamentations, that only gradually
subsided. They seemed like persons awoke
from a nightmare. The oldest and coolest
soldiers evinced no hurry to leave, no desire to
remain behind longer than necessary.

The women had gone, the braver men had
left; the residue were the cowards, and the
baser and more excitable sort, whom nothing
could arouse to becoming fortitude, and who
refused to adopt the proper and prescribed
means of safety. In vain Captain Cobb threatened
and entreated; they still obstinately hesitated,
begging and imploring to be lowered like
the women had been. But this was impossible,
for it was a slow process, and every moment was
now valuable.

Between nine and ten o'clock the boatmen
shouted that the wreck, long since nine or ten
feet below the water-mark, had sunk two feet
lower since their last trip. Colonel Fearon and
Major M'Gregor, who had promised to remain
to the last with Captain Cobb, prepared to
leave, there being still three boats to fill. Out
at once, one after the other, without pausing,
they crept along the long tossing boom in the
darkness, and in the blinding squall of wind and
rain. The other landsmen still dared not follow,
and remained to die horribly. When they got
towards the end, the wind was so violent
that the three men despaired of reaching the
rope. The first was twice plunged over his
head in the water; the second, Major M'Gregor,
noticing that it was dangerous to drop
down the rope as the boat was inclining
towards the person descending, waited till the
boat receded, and so dropped safely into it as it
swayed back, without being either drenched or
bruised. Colonel Fearon, the third, was drawn
under the boat, struck against it, and was
at last dragged in only by the hair of his head,
almost senseless and alarmingly bruised.

Captain Cobb still remained on board,
generously urging the few dumb and powerless
wretches that remained to pass on along the
boom, on which they crowded. But finding
all entreaties useless on such men — many of
whom, however, had previously shown courage
— and hearing the guns — their  tackles bursting i
n the flame — fall and explode in the
hold, instantly saw the moment had come
when he could do no more. He therefore
sprang on the boom, seized hold of the