topping lift or rope that connects the driver-
boom with the mizen-top, and passing over the
heads of the infatuated men, dropped himself
into the water, and escaped.

Yet even then a boat from the Cambria
remained under the Kent's stern, her crew
expostulating and entreating those on board, till
the flames, bursting from the cabin windows,
almost scorched the oars; nor would the captain
of the Cambria let the boat come alongside his
ship till he was sure that no hope was left.

Some of the Kent's crew were less generous
in their self-devotion, and refused again to
venture their lives. Still the boats did not cease
to ply between the Cambria and the wreck, until
one of the three boats left had to be plugged
with soldiers' jackets, another had had its bow
stove, and the second was so torn as to make
it necessary to lash the oars to the cutter's ribs.

The scenes on board the Cambria were
beyond the painter's and the poet's powers. The
most passionate joy alternated with the most
wild despair as the death of husbands or of
children was announced, or as some saved man
rushed into his wife's arms. But all these
conflicting feelings were arrested by the last
tremendous tableau of destruction and death.
From that doom some had just escaped; in that
doom the husbands or children of others were
passing from them in torture.

The last boat had hardly arrived, when the
Kent, three miles distant, showed flames
spreading fast along the upper deck and poop,
and flashing like lightning up the masts and
rigging, till all became a pyramid of flame, that
crimsoned the sky and shone red upon the
Cambria's sails. The flags of distress, hoisted
so hopefully in the morning, were seen waving
amid the fire, till one by one the masts fell like
stately steeples over the ship's side. About
half-past one the flames reached the magazine;
there was a violent explosion, the blazing
timbers of the Kent flew like rockets into the
air; and then came a horrible darkness that
seemed deeper and blacker than before.

In the mean time, the frightened and
despairing men left onboard the Kent were driven
by the advancing flames to the chains, till the
masts fell crashing overboard, and they then
clung to them in the water in horrible suspense
for some hours.

Help was approaching. About twelve o'clock
the watch of the barque Caroline, on her
passage from Alexandria to Liverpool,
observed a bright light on the horizon, and knew
it at once to be a ship on fire. There was a
heavy sea on, but the captain, instantly setting
his maintop-gallant-sail, ran down towards the
spot. About one, the sky becoming brighter,
a sudden jet of vivid light shot up; but they
were too distant to hear the explosion. In half
an hour the Caroline could see the wreck of a
large vessel lying head to the wind. The ribs
and frame timbers, marking the outlines of
double ports and quarter-galleries, showed
that the burning skeleton was that of a first-
class Indiaman. Every other external feature
was gone; she was burnt nearly to the water's
edge, but still floated, pitching majestically as
she rose and fell on the long rolling swell of the
bay. The vessel looked like an immense cage of
charred basket-work filled with flame, that here
and there blazed brighter at intervals. Above,
and far to leeward, there was a vast drifting
cloud of curling smoke spangled with millions
of sparks and burning flakes, and scattered by
the wind over the sky and waves.

As the Caroline approached, part of a mast
and some spars, rising and falling, were
observed grinding under the weather-quarter of the
wreck, haying become entangled with the keel
or rudder-irons, and thus attaching it to the hull
of the vessel. The Caroline, coming down swift
before the wind, was in a few minutes brought
across the bows of the Kent. At that moment
a shout was heard as if from the very centre of
the fire, and the same instant several figures
were observed clinging to a mast. The sea was
heavy, and the wreck threatened every moment
to disappear. The Caroline was hove-to to
leeward, in order to avoid the showers of
flakes and sparks, and to intercept any
boats or rafts. The mate and four seamen
pushed off in the jolly-boat, through a sea
covered with floating spars, chests, and furniture,
that threatened to crush or overwhelm
the boat. When within a few yards of the
stern, they caught sight of the first living thing
— a wretched man clinging to a spar close under
the ship's counter. Every time the stern-frame
rose with the swell he was suspended above the
water, and scorched by the long keen tongues
of pure flame that now came darting through
the gun-room ports. Every time this torture
came the man shrieked with agony, the
next moment the surge came and buried him
under the wave, and he was silent. The
Caroline's men, defying the fire, pulled close to him,
but just as their hands were stretching towards
him (latterly the poor wretch had been silent),
the rope or spar was snapped by the fire, and
he sank for ever.

The men then, carefully backing, carried off
six other of the nearest men from the mast. The
small boat, only eighteen feet long, would not
hold more than eleven persons, and indeed, as
it was, was nearly swamped by a heavy wave.
In half an hour the boat bravely returned, and
took off six more.

The mate, fearing the vessel was going down,
and that the masts would be swallowed in the
vortex, redoubled his efforts to get a third time
to the wreck. While struggling with a head
sea, and before the boat could reach the mast, the
end came. The fiery mass settled like a great
red-hot coal into the waves, and disappeared for
ever. The sky grew instantly dark, a dense
shroud of black smoke lingered over the grave
of the ship, and instead of the crackle of burning
timbers and the flutter of flames, there
spread the ineffable stillness of death.

As the last gleam flickered out, Mr. Wallen,
the mate of the Caroline, with great quickness
of thought set the spot by a star. Then, in