It was a fearful night, and Captain Lane prayed Heaven that he might
never see such another.

About half an hour after the squall first struck them--the captain of
the _Ocean Star_ was standing with his two officers on the quarter-deck,
"conning the vessel by the feel of the wind and rain," keeping her dead
before the gale--when there came a flash and a peal which made them
cower almost to the decks.

"My God!" was the simultaneous exclamation of all. A long chain of
lightning and a heavy ball of fire seemed to shoot from the sky,
lighting up the whole sea, revealing, and at the same time striking, in
its descent, a full-rigged brig, which, like themselves, was scudding
before the gale under bare poles, a few cables' length off their port
beam. The next instant, a fearful explosion, heard loud above the
roaring storm, shook the sea, a volume of flame and fire shot up in the
air, and when they looked again for the vessel, in the flashes of
lightning, it was nowhere to be seen.

As the morning broke, the gale abated, and settled into a light breeze
from the eastward. They made all sail, and stood to the southward with
the wind abeam, hoping to fall in with some survivors of the wreck.

Captain Lane changed his wet garments for something more comfortable,
refreshed himself with a strong cup of coffee, and, taking his glass,
sought the foretopsail yard. About seven bells, he thought he discovered
some object in the water three or four points off the lee bow. Hailing
the deck to keep off for it, he very soon made out fragments of a
vessel--spars, water casks, pieces of deck and, as they came still