Palace and Cottage Author:Oliver Optic Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE RESCUED PASSENGERS. BY the time the Young America reached the scene of disaster, the boats of the Josephine had returned to the schooner, ... more »loaded with persons from the burning steamer, who had taken to the water to escape the fire. Captain Kendall gave them a hearty welcome, apd used every effort to make them comfortable. The boats were sent away a second time just as the ship came up to take part in the humane work. The steamer was from London, bound for Rotterdam. All the passengers knew of the fire was, that an explosion had taken place in the hold, which was immediately followed by the bursting out of the flames so fiercely as to defy all efforts to subdue them. The consort's four boats again pulled towards the steamer, .separating as they left the vessel, so as to give to each a wider field of labor. Some of the surviving passengers were floating on life-preservers, or clinging to barrels, doors, timbers, and other articles, which had been thrown overboard to sustain them. It was painfully evident that many of them had gone down never to rise again, and, in spite of the excitement of the occasion to the young tars, there was a terrible sadness about it which they could not escape.ft It was awful to feel that they were in the midst of the harvest of death, and that many were sinking to their last sleep in spite of all their exertions to save them. Pelham, in the gig, pulled close up to the ill-fated steamer, whose decks were now in a light blaze from stem to stern. No person could be seen on any part of the wreck, — and, indeed, it would have been impossible for a person to live there a single instant, — but several were clinging to the paddles, and other available portions of the hull. They were taken into the gig, which soon had as many as she ...« less