CHAPTER XII.
"HOLD your tongue," said Welch, with an oath.
Mr.Hazel looked at Miss Rolleston, and she at him.

It was a momentary glance, and her eyes sank directly, and filled with patient tears.
For the first few minutes after the _Proserpine_ went down the survivors sat benumbed, as if awaiting their turn to be ingulfed.
They seemed so little, and the _Proserpine_ so big; yet she was swallowed before their eyes, like a crumb.

They lost, for a few moments, all idea of escaping.
But, true it is, that, "while there's life there's hope"; and, as soon as their hearts began to beat again, their eyes roved round the horizon and their elastic minds recoiled against despair.
This was rendered easier by the wonderful beauty of the weather.

There were men there who had got down from a sinking ship into boats heaving and tossing against her side in a gale of wind, and yet been saved; and here all was calm and delightful.

To be sure, in those other shipwrecks land had been near, and their greatest peril was over when once the boats got clear of the distressed ship without capsizing.