Tempest-tossed Author:Theodore Tilton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. ArTER the shipwreck, what was the next day's history of the fire-scourged Coromandel ? It was a log kept, not by Capt. L... more »ane, but Capt. Vail. The vessel had passed into fresh commission, under a new admiralty. The day began, for Rodney, before the night ended. His immediate ministrations to Mary being over, he stepped softly from her sick-chamber into the dark cabin. " The mother and her babe," said he, " sweetly sleep, but the ship groans in pain." A few rays of lamplight, that came through a small lattice in Mary's door, shot across the darkness. " What shall I do for the ship ?" asked its solitary master. The first act of a man when profoundly perplexed is some unconscious trifle ; so Dr. Vail wound his watch. Putting the time-piece absent-mindedly into his pocket, he suddenly took it out again, and, holding it up into the faint beam, whispered, " Three o'clock, and all's well!" The recent scenes through which he had passed had wrought him into such a nervous ecstasy that he could not then have regarded anything as ill. The ship gave a lurch that made him stagger. "How she rolls !" he exclaimed. "She is in the trough of the sea. I must get her head to. But how vain to attempt it in the night and alone !" He groped his way to the deck to observe the situation. " The fire," thought he, " was put out before Lane was far from the ship. He and his boats will try to return. The best I can do is to help them find the Coromandel in the dark." So he hunted about for a couple of lanterns, which he found and lighted. Crawling then across the deck on his hands and knees, sometimes slipping and sliding, and fearful that the bulwarks were burnt off, which would expose him to the risk of falling overboard, he...« less