away by that tornado.

"Then there was hewing and cleaving on deck, the clatter of many axes
and hatchets: for we were in imminent danger of being capsized, keel
uppermost, and our only chance was to cut away the masts.

"The muscles of courage were tried then, my Emmy, and the strength which
religion gives a man. I felt sensibly held up by the Everlasting Arms: I
could listen to the still small Voice in the midst of a crash which
might have been the end of all things: though in darkness, God had given
me light; though in uttermost peril, my peace was never calmer in our
little village school.

"And the billows were knocking at the poor ship's side like sledge
hammers; and the lightnings fell around us scorchingly, with forked
bolts, as arrows from the hand of a giant; the thunders overhead, close
overhead, crashing from a concave cloud that hung about us heavily--a
dense, black, suffocating curtain--roared and raved as nothing earthly
can, but thunder in the tropics; the rain was as a cataract, literally
rushing in a mass: the winds appeared not winds, nor whirlwinds, but
legions of emancipated demons shrieking horribly, and flapping their
wide wings; a flock of night-birds flying from the dawn; and all else
was darkness, confusion, rolling and rocking about, the screams of
women, the shouts of men, curses and prayers, agony, despair,
and--peace, deep peace.

"On a sudden, to our great astonishment, all was silent again,
oppressively silent; and, but for the swell upon the seas, all still.
The tornado had rushed by: that troop of Tartar horse, having sacked the
village, are departed, now in full retreat: the blackness and the fury