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and fell in its encreasing furrows.
Behold us now in our frail tenement, hemmed in by hungry, roaring waves,
buffeted by winds. In the inky east two vast clouds, sailing contrary ways,
met; the lightning leapt forth, and the hoarse thunder muttered. Again in
the south, the clouds replied, and the forked stream of fire running along
the black sky, shewed us the appalling piles of clouds, now met and
obliterated by the heaving waves. Great God! And we alone--we three--
alone--alone--sole dwellers on the sea and on the earth, we three must
perish! The vast universe, its myriad worlds, and the plains of boundless
earth which we had left--the extent of shoreless sea around--contracted
to my view--they and all that they contained, shrunk up to one point,
even to our tossing bark, freighted with glorious humanity.
A convulsion of despair crossed the love-beaming face of Adrian, while with
set teeth he murmured, "Yet they shall be saved!" Clara, visited by an
human pang, pale and trembling, crept near him--he looked on her with an
encouraging smile--"Do you fear, sweet girl? O, do not fear, we shall
soon be on shore!"
The darkness prevented me from seeing the changes of her countenance; but
her voice was clear and sweet, as she replied, "Why should I fear? neither
sea nor storm can harm us, if mighty destiny or the ruler of destiny does
not permit. And then the stinging fear of surviving either of you, is not
here--one death will clasp us undivided."
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