One night it blew a violent gale, and the Russian captain, deeming it
impossible to keep his anchorage in a bay so full of unseen dangers,
made signals to the land, in hopes of exciting some native, experienced
in the navigation, to come off, and direct him how to steer. Every
moment increased his jeopardy; the storm augmented; and, at each growing
blast, he expected to be torn from his cables, and dashed to atoms
against the rocks. No one moved from the shore. Again the signals were
repeated: Laonce had risen from his bed on hearing the first. Who was
there amongst all in that island, excepting his British comrade, who
would have known how to move _a ship_ through those boiling waves? The
light canoe, and a vessel of heavy burthen, were different objects! His
comrade was then watching by the side of an almost dying wife, who had
just made him the father of his first-born son. Could Laonce summon him
from that spot of his heart's tenderest duties, to attend to the roaring
guns of distress from a stranger vessel? Impossible! He rose, and looked
out on the night. He listened to the second signal, he wrung his hands,
and, sighing, was returning to his couch again. His wife had then risen
also. She clasped her arms round him, and a big tear stood in both her
eyes, "You tell me," said she, "that your people do not make those
thunders to heaven, and to earth, till they are drowning. You know you
can save them all. Go, Lao,"--and she smiled; "go; and the foreign
chief, after you have saved him, will give you something for me--either
a looking-glass, or a silk handkerchief. Go, Lao."

He wound his arms round the gentle pleader; and, almost ashamed that the
father and the husband in his heart, should make him calculate between
his own life and that of the gallant crew, he told her, that the tempest
raged too tremendously for him to dare stemming it. But she laughingly
repulsed his caresses, accusing his fondness for her as the inducement
of his assumed apprehensions; and being too long accustomed to the