Very soon their anguish was quieted, and they began to look, for the return of their steamer with Ashlock and his rescued crew.

The next day I went again to the beach with Lieutenant Ord, and we found that one or two bodies had been washed ashore, torn all to pieces by the sharks, which literally swarmed the inlet at every new tide.

In a few days the weather moderated, and the steamer returned from the south, but the surf was so high that she anchored a mile off.

I went out myself, in the whale or surf boat, over that terrible bar with a crew of soldiers, boarded the steamer, and learned that none other of Ashlock's crew except the one before mentioned had been saved; but, on the contrary, the captain of the steamer had sent one of his own boats to their rescue, which was likewise upset in the surf, and, out of the three men in her, one had drifted back outside the breakers, clinging to the upturned boat, and was picked up.

This sad and fatal catastrophe made us all afraid of that bar, and in returning to the shore I adopted the more prudent course of beaching the boat below the inlet, which insured us a good ducking, but was attended with less risk to life.
I had to return to the fort and bear to Mrs.Ashlock the absolute truth, that her husband was lost forever.
Meantime her sister had entirely recovered her equilibrium, and being the guest of the officers, who were extremely courteous to her, she did not lament so loudly the calamity that saved them a long life of banishment on the beach of Indian River.