Accidents > Dangers of the deep, or, Narratives of shipwreck and adventure at sea

KENT EAST INDIAMAN. 383
thereby be put to their sufferings. Several ot
the soldiers’ wives and children, who had fled
for temporary shelter into the after-cabins
on the upper decks, were engaged in prayer
and in reading the Scriptures with the ladies,
some of whom were enabled, with wonderful
self-possession, to offer to others those spiritual
consolations which a firm and intelligent
trust in the Redeemer of the world appeared
at this awful hour to impart to their own
breasts. The dignified deportment of two
young ladies in particular, formed a specimen
of natural strength of mind, finely modified
by Christian feeling, that failed not to attract
the notice and admiration of every one who
had an opportunity of witnessing it.
While we thus lay in a state of physical
inertion, hut with all our mental faculties in
rapid and painful activity,—with the waves
lashing furiously against the side of our de¬
voted ship, as if in anger with the hostile ele¬
ment for not more speedily performing its of¬
fice of destruction,—the binnacle, by one of
those many lurches which were driving every
thing moveable from side to side of the ves¬
sel, was suddenly wrenched from its fastenings,
and all the apparatus of the compass dashed