Paddling under Palmettos — page 202: what you’re looking at

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

Paddling Under Palmettos. 195 beach to look out upon the raging ocean. It was a sight such as Archie would not likely soon forget. Flashes of lightning illumined the picture, and away out could be seen the tumultous waste of tossing waters, foam-crested-and lashed by the fury of the tempest. How terrible they looked! Upon that heaving sea their canoes could not have lived five minutes, and it would have been only short of a miracle to reach the beach with them except in splinters. Lucky indeed were they to have come ashore at the proper time. “Look! Was that a vessel?’ shouted Ned. He pointed far out, and with the next flash they strained their eyes to see. A spectre bark could be faintly distinguished run- ning under bare poles for the south. Then the gloom hid her. When the electric fluid again illumined the scene they looked for her in vain. Some curtain of mist had swallowed the vessel, and she had vanished as completely as though engulfed in old ocean’s maw. After enjoying the strange sight and watching the huge billows hurl themselves upon:the beach with Gomicboo .S (E(@)