We hear of providential deliverances.

Was this one?
But life is sweet to all, death comes as hard.

And for myself I am almost tempted to hang my head, that I escaped the fate of my shipmates; something like him who blushed to have escaped the fell carnage at Thermopylae.
Though I can not repress a shudder when I think of that old ship's end, it is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our deserting her could have been in any way instrumental in her loss.
Nevertheless, I would to heaven the Arcturion still floated; that it was given me once more to tread her familiar decks..