Behold us now in our frail tenement, hemmed in by hungry, roaring waves, buffeted by winds. In the inky east two vast clouds, sailing contrary ways, met; the lightning leapt forth, and the hoarse thunder muttered. Again in the south, the clouds replied, and the forked stream of fire running along the black sky, showed us the appalling piles of clouds, now met and obliterated by the heaving waves. Great God! And we alone⁠—we three⁠—alone⁠—alone⁠—sole dwellers on the sea and on the earth, we three must perish! The vast universe, its myriad worlds, and the plains of boundless earth which we had left⁠—the extent of shoreless sea around⁠—contracted to my view⁠—they and all that they contained, shrunk up to one point, even to our tossing bark, freighted with glorious humanity.

A convulsion of despair crossed the love-beaming face of Adrian, while with set teeth he murmured, “Yet they shall be saved!” Clara, visited by an human pang, pale and trembling, crept near him⁠—he looked on her with an encouraging smile⁠—“Do you fear, sweet girl? O, do not fear, we shall soon be on shore!”