Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/37

 roll. At that instant I saw, or fancied I saw, the upturned face of my mother. "My God! what does this mean?" I gasped under my breath. The belaying-pin was soon replaced in the rack, but it seemed to me that  I had a death grip upon it. It was some time before I could take my hand from it. I felt as if I had committed the act, and were a criminal in thought, if not in deed. If I looked down into the blue sea or up into the depths of blue above, there I saw the face of my  mother. I was only consoled by knowing that I had a forgiving Father. The awful suspense was broken by the officer of the deck singing out through his speaking- trumpet, "A bright lookout fore and aft!" "Ay, ay, sir!" was responded by the lookout from the fore-yard forecastle, weather and lee bows, gangway, and quarters.

At eight bells — four — the watch was relieved  and I went below, but not to sleep. My mind was in a terrible turmoil. At sunrise the outlook from the fore-topsail yard reported a wreck.

"Where away?" was the cry.

"Two points on the weather bow," came the answer, which created considerable excitement on board.

We stood for what we supposed to be a wreck with the mast gone. It proved, however, to be a large cottonwood tree, one hundred and twenty feet long and fourteen feet in circumference. It had been in the water a long time and was covered with barnacles, and  a large number of dolphins and deep-sea sharks were  swimming about it. It was probably thousands of miles from the spot where it grew on the banks of the Mississippi. In rough weather it might easily have been