vessel appeared in a cloud, and while buffeted on each side by the
raging of waves, which seemed contending to tear her to pieces, she lay
to for a few minutes, to rescue the men from the yawning gulf; one
caught a rope and was saved, but the other was seen no more.

Again the bark was set loose to the current. Wallace, now with two
rowers only, applied his whole strength to their aid. The master and
the third man were employed in the unceasing toil of laying out the
accumulating water.

While the anxious chief tugged at the oar, and watched the thousand
embattled cliffs which threatened destruction, his eye looked for the
vessel that contained his friends. But the liquid mountains which
rolled around him prevented all view; and, with hardly a hope of seeing
them again, he pursued his attempt to preserve the lives of those
committed to his care.

All this while Lady Mar lay in a state of stupefaction. Having fainted
at the first alarm of danger, she had fallen from swoon to swoon, and
now remained almost insensible upon the bosoms of her maids. In a
moment the vessel struck with a great shock, and the next instant it
seemed to move with a velocity incredible. "The whirpool! the
whirlpool!" resounded from every lip. But again the rapid motion was
suddenly checked, and the women, fancying they had struck on the Vrekin
Rock, shrieked aloud. The cry, and the terrified words which
accompanied it, aroused Lady Mar. She started from her trance, and,
while the confusion redoubled, rushed toward the dreadful scene.

The mountainous waves and lowering clouds, borne forward by the blast,
anticipated the dreariness of night. The last rays of the setting sun