The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 387: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

300 THE STEAM PACKET. the inmates of the cabins; and in a moment the companion ladders were crowded with the affrighted beings rushing to the deck. Ladies appeared, some with their hair hanging wildly over their shoulders, others with their stays unlaced: all sensations of recent illness had disappeared, and were succeeded by the one dread engrossing senti- ment of terror. The deck was speedily crowded with passengers ; and questions were put far more rapidly than replies could be obtained. At that same moment a heavy sea broke on board, and the water rushed down the companion-ways into the now deserted cabins, like tremendous cataracts. The vessel staggered under the wave; but it immediately righted ; and, though weakened by the impetus, still kept head to wind. The situation of the passengers, and also of the gallant steam-paeket, was more desperate than even Captain Bloomfield himself had at first imagined. The vessel was on fire in the engine-room; and the sea which had broken over her stern, and deluged her cabins, had not reached the hatches of that compartment of the ship. Every means had been tried to check the progress of the flames before the alarm was given; but all endeavours were vain, and in a few moments the flames burst forth around the funnel with a fury that seemed to threaten almost immediate destruction. The boats were instantly lowered ; and while they were being eased into the water, many an eye was cast around, with feverish anxiety, to discover if a sail were near. It was with the greatest difficulty that the sailors and more self- possessed portion of the Luminaries on board the steam-packet could maintain anything like order while the embarkation in the boats took place. First the ladies were removed into them, and then the male pas- sengers were permitted to follow. No attempt was made to remove one lota of the baggage belonging to the party, the flames gaining too quickly upon the fated vessel, and the boats being too much crowded with living things to admit of the incumbrance of boxes and bales. At length all the late occupants of the steam-packet were stowed in safety in the boats, Captain Bloomfield having been the last to quit the burning vessel. The boats were then pushed off, the mariners took to their oars ; and while the frail barks proceeded slowly over the heaving billows, the steam-packet floated along, at a distance, a huge volume of light red flame shooting up from its entrails into the air, and crowned with a dense and black smoke. The clouds above continued to wear a dark and threatening aspect ; and the wind drove with renewed fury. Captain Bloomfield ordered the course of the boats to be shaped with a view to rounding the North Foreland, and proceeding to Ramsgate; at the same time he Gomicbooks (E(0)