Various

Fear was within the tossing bark

When stormy winds grew loud

And waves came rolling high and dark,

And the tall mast was bowed.

The breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods, against a stormy sky.

Their giant branches tost.

Mrs. Hemans.

About twenty-four hours after the capture of the brig, related in the last chapter, every evidence of a violent storm was abroad. The wind began to sigh, as if bewailing in anticipation the evils which its increased fury might perpetrate. Gradually becoming more violent, it raged with the violence of a young lion over its prey. A blackness, almost as thick as night covered the face of the sky, as though the Almighty were bending his most awful frown upon a devoted world. These indications were speedily followed by heavy rain, intermixed with hail, disturbing the ocean, swelling brooks and lakes into vast sheets of foam, borne by the might of the wind far from their original source, and inundating the land in a fearful manner.

Two weeks previous to this storm an aged colonist from New Haven, had arrived with his son at the island on which Newport now stands. The advantages of that situation for sea-bathing, at this day so thoroughly known and tested, had even at that early period been discovered, and the season being spring, their object was to make arrangements for putting up a rude bathing-house for the accommodation of invalids.

During the storm described, the pair had remained for shelter on board their schooner, which, anchored as she was, had hard work to live through the anger of the elements. At length, however, after four or five hours, their rage began to abate: the wind gradually blew less and less wildly, the clouds commenced to disperse, and the shower to fall more quietly. Finally, the sun broke through his shroud of darkness, a pleasant calm succeeded, and the only rain-drops perceptible were those which clung to the dripping masts and sides of the schooner, and the rocks and shrubbery on the island.

As the old man and his son looked around them, the sea swelled and heaved with the agitation of the recent storm, the effects of which upon the waves had been too violent to subside for many hours. The tide poured along a surf deafening to hear, and bewildering to behold. The sea came on toward the beach in swells, rather than waves, as though the whole flood were pouring on in one huge body, rising gradually as it neared, towering above the high ridge, drawing back for an instant, and standing as a wall of water, it poured down like some mighty cataract.

All at once, the young man started and exclaimed, “God in Heaven! father, there is a vessel drifting upon the opposite strand.”

The old man perceived an object among the tide. He took his spy-glass and looked through it. “She is dismasted,” he said, “nothing but her hulk is left upon the water.”

“And drifting against the breakers,” cried his son, in horror, “without the slightest means of weathering the point!”

“She makes no attempt,” replied the other, “she must be deserted by her crew.”

“No open boat could have existed through such a storm as is just past, all must have perished.”

“Most probably,” answered the old man, with the mild composure of his years.

The hulk was now in the midst of the current, and drifting rapidly toward the strand. Their sight of it, however, was still indistinct: though from the black speck it had at first appeared, it grew a visible object. At length, they could perceive that it was a freight or passenger vessel, unfitted for defense, for there were no port-holes discernible. She had evidently been dismasted in the storm, and lay water-logged upon the waves, at the mercy of their violence. The crew, finding themselves unable to guide her, or relieve the leak, had taken to their boats and left the ship to her fate.

There was nothing then to fear for human life in the end to which she was fast approaching; yet the old man and his son could scarcely behold her, without a feeling of apprehension, about to fall a prey to the waves. As she advanced, every fathom’s stride she grew larger and larger. At length, as she surmounted the summit of one mountainous billow, her whole bulk was discernible. And when that wave retired, she had ceased her existence, and the receding ocean carried back merely her shattered remains, in the form of planks and beams, to return again by the next wave and again be precipitated to a distance.

At this instant he perceived a plank floating toward the land, to which were fastened two human beings.

“It has grounded in a place so shallow as almost to be dry; those persons live and may yet be saved!” was the exclamation of the youth, as he jumped from the deck of the schooner, and began to make his way at an incredibly rapid pace toward the wreck.

“My son, return, your attempt is rashness, nay, it is death.”

But the young man was out of hearing. In ten minutes he stood upon the cliff which overlooked the spot he sought. He began to descend. His progress was several times impeded by the falling of huge stones to which he was about to entrust his weight. Large fragments, too, came rolling after him, as if to send him headlong to the bottom. But a courageous heart and a firm tread bore him safely to the foot of the precipice.

He was now upon the shallow portion of a small shelf, which projected out a little distance into the sea, composed of gravel and stones. Upon this a few pieces of the wreck had grounded. He eagerly sought among these the objects that had brought him on his perilous errand. He soon discovered them. They were in a most precarious position. One of them a delicate female, her wet clothing hanging in heavy folds upon her form, and herself tied by a handkerchief round her waist to a plank, being placed with her face uppermost. The other was that of a man, lying by her side in a reversed position, with his left arm thrown over his companion, as if to keep her more securely in her place, and his right clinging around the plank, with the tight, convulsive grasp with which he had taken hold upon it. In both these persons, sense and the power of motion were gone. The plank on which they lay, not being thoroughly grounded upon the beach, but floating still in part upon the sea, was liable every moment to be washed away, to return no more.

Just as the youth, who had come in the hope of being their preserver, had discovered them, he saw a billow approaching, and hastened to interpose his efforts before it reached them, lest, in receding, it might bear away the sufferers.

He rushed into the surf, and held the plank on which they were with the tenacity of some animal seizing upon his prey, though under the dictation of a motive entirely different. It was not without a severe struggle on his part, that he as well as his lifeless companions were not swept off by the wave, which proved even stronger in its might than he had anticipated. He succeeded, however, in retaining his position; and, before the return of another, by a violent exertion of strength, he dragged upon the small strip of dry sand, the plank as well as those attached to it.

He next asked himself, how he should remove the unhappy sufferers to his father’s vessel, and obtain the means of recalling their ebbing life and prostrated strength. He looked toward the cliff and shouted for assistance, but he was answered only by the roaring waves. He turned his eyes again on those who were before him. The lady, as she lay with her face uppermost, was a sight more beautiful in the eyes of the rough youth who gazed upon her than he had ever deemed were the angels in Heaven. She was at the middle age of life, but still interesting and lovely in appearance. Her garments were black, and contrasted strangely with the pearl-like whiteness of her skin. The face of her companion being downward, his features were not visible; but chestnut curls clustered over the back of his head, and his whole appearance gave promise of a pleasing physiognomy beneath.

Bending over them, their preserver discovered that they both still breathed, but so feebly that the respiration of each was scarcely perceptible. Of the lady especially, life seemed to have so slight a hold, that there was much ground to fear that unless it were at once re-inforced it would shortly become extinct.

At this moment his father crept cautiously along the beach. Anxious for his son, as well as wishing to assist him in his hazardous enterprise of mercy, if, in fact, he had not lost his life in the perilous path he had taken, the old man had reached him at length by a circuitous and less dangerous descent.

He uttered an exclamation of thanks at beholding him uninjured. Then, after a moment’s consultation, the father untied the handkerchief which bound the female to the plank, and lifting the insensible and fragile form in his arms with much care, he set out with rapid steps by the same path he had come.

His son had more difficulty in raising the body of her companion. But by one of those superhuman efforts of strength which great emergencies are known to inspire, he at length succeeded, and with labored breath, followed after his father, as rapidly as the heavy weight of his burden would allow.

It was about twelve minutes after the old man, that the youth reached the schooner. The lady, by this time, under the vigorous exertions of his father, had revived so far as to open her eyes and sigh heavily.

Both the men, therefore, deemed it best to devote themselves to the other sufferer. He too, though not so readily as his companion, owing to his face having lain downward, and his respiration having been thus impeded, at length gave signs of returning life.

Reader, we will not stay to behold their complete restoration to consciousness. We leave you to imagine the circumstance. Doubtless you have anticipated us in the information, that in them you behold Alice Heath and Frank Stanley, both of whom the storm had been the means of delivering unharmed from the hands of the pirates.

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