Lavillette struck at these hideous and threatening
monsters with the remaining sabre; but the
most furious blows only drove them back into
the sea for a few moments

Three days more of inexpressible anguish, and
many of the men, careless of life, even bathed
in sight of the sharks, or, to lessen their thirst,
stood naked on the front of the raft where the
waves broke. Sometimes great numbers of
polypi were driven on the raft, and their long
prickly arms clinging to the naked men, caused
them horrible pain before they could be flung
off. Still there was hope; and one man, actually
joking, said, with irrepressible French gaiety:

"If the brig is sent to look for us, God grant
her the eyes of an Argus."

Thinking land near, eight of the more
determined men resolved to build a small
raft and row in search of shore. They nailed
boards across a part of a spar, and fixed a
small mast and sail, but the raft was found
crazy and dangerous, and the builders let it
drift away. There were now only twelve or
fifteen bottles of wine left. An invincible loathing
of human flesh at last seized the sufferers.
The sun rose without clouds, pure and bright.
The survivors had prayed and divided the wine,
when a captain of infantry, looking towards the
horizon, suddenly descried a ship. There was a
shout of irrepressible joy. A vessel was seen,
but at so great a distance that only the tips of
the masts were visible. The joy was convulsive
and passionate. They returned thanks to God
with one voice; but their hope was still alloyed
with fear. They straightened cask hoops, and
tied to them handkerchiefs of different colours;
these were waved from the top of the mast by
one man, aided by others. Some thought the
ship grew larger; others, that it receded. All at
once it disappeared. The men, then struck down
with the profoundest despair, lay down to die
under a rude tent made of old sails, proposing
to write a short detail of their sufferings on a
board, sign it with their names, and fasten it to
the top of the mast.

After two hours of this last agony, the master
gunner, suddenly looking feebly out of the hut,
uttered a shout, then held his breath, and
stretched his hands towards the sea. All he said
was, "Saved! the brig is close on us." Yes,
the brig, with her great white, wings spread,
was bearing down full on them. Then the
sailors, soldiers, and officers embraced each
other and wept for joy, and even the wounded
men crawled out to see the messenger of God.
Every one of the fifteen haggard, hollow-eyed,
long-bearded men, sun-scorched, delirious,
almost naked, waved signals as the well-known
brig, the Argus, flew rapidly before the wind,
and hoisted the great white flag of France,
the crew standing in the shrouds waving their
hats in joyful welcome. Of the one hundred
and fifty perons left on the raft only fifteen
remained, and of these five perished of fatigue
shortly after reaching St. Louis.

Of the cowardly rascals in the boats, it is waste
of time to say much. They reached the coast,
and made their way through the desert to
Senegal, suffering by the way, and fighting, praying,
and uttering lamentations and adjurations
in their previous manner. Of the seventeen
men left in the Medusa, twelve perished on a
raft on which they tried to reach the shore.
Three men only were found alive. Each of these
lived apart in a separate corner of the vessel;
never meeting his companions but to fight over
the provisions.

The almost incredible sufferings of the crew
of the Medusa (the record of which reads like a
dark page from the Inferno) created a profound
sensation in Europe. Subscriptions were raised
for the survivors, both in Paris and London.

Among those who showed kindness to M.
Corréard, one of the most meritorious of the
survivors, was a countryman of our own, Major
Peddy, the successor of Mungo Park in his
African expedition; but the French government
never forgave M. Corréard for writing, in
conjunction with M. Savigny, an account of the
wreck that exposed the incompetence, baseness,
and criminal carelessness which had occasioned
the loss of the Medusa.

LONDON FIRES.

"IT'S getting near quarter-day, you see, and
fires come round as regularly as the tax-collector!"
said a literary gentleman, whose
acquaintance I made in a parish board-room,
and whose course of public duty leads him to
observe fires, inquests, casual wards, and
parochial bear-gardens. We were standing under
the shadow of St. Dunstan's church; his text
was the red monster which had just torn by,
steaming, glaring, and yelling; and the "Hi!
hi! hi!" of the helmeted figures forming its
back, and the hard clamp of its hoofed feet,
had interrupted us in the midst of a philosophic
comparison between the recent defamatory
brawlings of the poor-law guardians of
Bethnal-green and the equally recent pugilistic
encounter between the vestrymen of Clerkenwell.

"Fires," my friend repeated sententiously,
"are the easiest way of paying rent, and the
insurance companies are very kind, and not
over-particular, so that a man has only to manage
cleverly to make a good burn-out serve his turn
remarkably. They don't like asking too many
questions, you see; for it gives an office a bad
name to do that; and when: there's so much
competition for policies, it's better to pay a
claim smilingly than to spend money in
advertisements."

This cynical view of the pursuits and
speculations of the London householder, as well as
the expediency-worship of the insurance offices,
I have since found to be unsupported by facts.
Fires are not especially numerous during the
weeks preceding quarter-day, and, in the opinion
of those best qualified to judge, arson is a
comparatively rare offence. The returns of foreign
capitals do, it is true, show a smaller per-centage
of disaster by fire in proportion to population