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

406
reached the water, and while the tackling was
yet unloosed, the engine began to play, and
boat and naan were nearly lost. Captain
McClelland, finding that his vessel had suf¬
fered damage, and robbed of all self-posses¬
sion by the personal peril to which he fancied
himself exposed, and the extent of the general
calamity, determined to steer from the place
without delay, and return to Greenock. In
this resolution he was supported by his crew;
and the Ayr bore away, passing in her course
over the very spot where the Comet had but
a few minutes before been engulphed, and
while the death-shrieks of many of her de¬
voted crew yet echoed over the waves 1
The scene which was exhibited on board
the Comet during the short space she re¬
mained above water after the two vessels
came in contact, is described by all the sur¬
vivors as truly heart-rending, and must have
included the condensed sufferings of a pro¬
tracted life. All who could force their way
from the cabins to the deck, hurried there in
the extremity of terror many roused from
sleep, as if by the trumpet of the archangel,
all doomed to experience the fallacy of those
dreams of home, which voyagers naturally in-