' That '_or if
so_' is affecting--and was realised, except, indeed, that the anguish
was _not_ brief, for it lasted twelve terrible hours--a long communion
face to face with Death! The bark sailed May 17, 1850. Captain Hasty,
'so fine a model of the New-England seaman,' inspired the passengers
with cheerful confidence, and for a few days all went prosperously.
But early in June, Captain Hasty died of confluent small-pox. The
child Angelino caught it, but recovered, and won all hearts by his
playful innocence, loving especially to be walked up and down in the
arms of the steward, who had just such a boy at home waiting his
arrival. On Thursday, July 15, the _Elizabeth_ was off the Jersey
coast: at evening-tide, a breeze sprang up, which by midnight had
become a hurricane. About four o'clock next morning, she struck on
Fire Island beach, and lay at the mercy of the maddened ocean. Mr
Channing's description of the wreck is a most picturesque narrative,
but too long for quotation. Very touching is the sketch of the Ossoli
group, remaining on board after nearly all the passengers and crew had
perished or escaped to land, which was distant only a few hundred
yards--the infant crying passionately, shivering in the wet, till
soothed and lullabied to sleep by his mother, a calm expectant of
death; and Ossoli tranquillising by counsel and prayer their
affrighted handmaid from Italy; all exchanging kindly partings, and
sending messages home, if any should survive to be their bearer.
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