deals.  After many days they reached the longitude of Gotland; they were then overtaken by a hurricane from the west which battered the vessel until she became water-logged and dismasted.  The crew lashed themselves where they could, and huddled together for warmth to minimise the effects of the biting frost and the mad turmoil of boiling foam which continuously swept over the doomed vessel, and caked itself into granite-like lumps of ice.  At intervals they would try to keep their blood from freezing by watching a “slant” when there was a comparative smooth, and run along the deckload a few times, keeping hold of the life-line that was stretched fore and aft for this purpose.  After twelve hours the force of the tempest was broken, and they were able to take more exercise, but they were without food and water, and no succour came near them.  They held stoutly out against the privations for two days, then one after another began to succumb to the combined ravages of cold, thirst, and hunger.  Some of them died insane, and others fought on until Nature became exhausted, and they also passed into the Valley of Death.  There were now only the captain and a coloured seaman left.  The wind and sea were drifting the vessel towards the Prussian coast, and on the fifth morning after she became water-logged the wreck stranded on a sandy beach two hours before daylight.  The captain and his coloured companion attached themselves to a plank, and by superhuman effort reached the shore.  They buried their bodies up to the waist in sand under the shelter of a hill, believing it would generate some warmth into their impoverished systems.  Their extremities were badly frostbitten, and when they were discovered at daylight by a man on horseback who had been attracted to the scene of the wreck, they were both in a condition of semi-consciousness.  He galloped off for assistance, and speedily had them placed under medical treatment, and under the roof of hospitable people.  A few days’ rest and proper attention made them well enough to be removed to a hospital.  It was soon found necessary to amputate both of the coloured man’s legs, and also some of his fingers.  The captain had the soles of his feet cut off; and he told me that he always regretted not having the feet taken off altogether, as he had never been free from suffering during all these years.  He said the doctor advised it, but that he himself was so anxious to save them that he preferred to have the soles scraped to the bone, hoping that the diseased parts would heal; “but,” said he with an air of sober melancholy, “they never have.”

Long before this story of piercing sadness, and horror, and heroism, and superb endurance was finished, I felt a big lump in my throat, and every nerve of me was tingling with emotion; and as I passed from the presence of this noble old fellow and pondered over all he had so reluctantly and modestly told me of himself, it made me conclude that I had been holding converse with a hero!  I have been obliged to confine myself to a brief outline of this tale of shipwreck.  There are incidents of it too painful to relate, and I am quite sure I am consulting the wishes of the narrator by abstaining from going too minutely into detail.  The main facts are given, and they may be relied on as absolutely true.