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Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" by Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
page 55 of 340 (16%)
hour afterward, the friends I loved were gone like dreams, the bustle of
departure was over, and, with lifted canvas and a puffing engine, we
were grandly steaming past the noble forts (poor Bertie's broach and
buckle, be it remembered) on our path of pride and power toward the
broad Atlantic.

The weather was oppressively hot, and, for the first thirty-six hours,
scarcely a breath of wind lifted us on our way, so that the engine,
wholly incompetent to the work of both sails and machinery, bore us very
slowly on our northward ocean-flight. Indeed, the failure of this
engine to do its duty, at first, had sorely disheartened both captain
and crew as we found later, for upon its execution and energies, in the
beginning, had rested our entire dependence.

On the evening of the second day's voyage, a sudden and violent
thunder-storm occurred, not unusual in those latitudes; during the
raging of which our mainmast was struck by lightning, and wholly
disabled.

The fire was extinguished in the only possible manner, by cutting it
away from the decks, letting it gently down upon them, deluging it, so
that our mast lay charred and blackened after its bath of sea-water,
like a mighty serpent stretched along the ship, from stem to stern, and
wrapped loosely in its shrouds. It did us good service later, though not
by defying the winds of heaven, nor spreading forth its snowy sails to
catch the tropic breezes.

Before many hours, it was destined to ride the waves in a shape that was
certainly never intended by those who chose it among many others--taper
and stately in its group of firs--to be the chief adornment of a gallant
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