nt of dawn. The rest took place with the trite rapidity of
the equatorial latitudes. It had been my foolish way to pooh-pooh the
old saying that there is no twilight in the tropics. I saw more truth in
it as I lay lonely on this heaving waste.

The stars were out; the sea was silver; the sun was up.

And oh! the awful glory of that sunrise! It was terrific; it was
sickening; my senses swam. Sunlit billows smooth and sinister, without a
crest, without a sound; miles and miles of them as I rose; an oily grave
among them as I fell. Hill after hill of horror, valley after valley of
despair! The face of the waters in petty but eternal unrest; and now
the sun must shine to set it smiling, to show me its cruel ceaseless
mouthings, to reveal all but the ghastlier horrors underneath.

How deep was it? I fell to wondering! Not that it makes any difference
whether you drown in one fathom or in ten thousand, whether you fall
from a balloon or from the attic window. But the greater depth or
distance is the worse to contemplate; and I was as a man hanging by his
hands so high above the world, that his dangling feet cover countries,
continents; a man who must fall very soon, and wonders how long he will
be falling, falling; and how far his soul will bear his body company.

In time I became more accustomed to the sun upon this heaving void; less
frightened, as a child is frightened, by the mere picture. And I have
still the impression that, as hour followed hour since the falling of
the wind, the nauseous swell in part subsided. I seemed less often on
an eminence or in a pit; my glassy azure dales had gentler slopes, or a
distemper was melting from my eyes.

At least I know that I had now less work to keep my frail ship trim,
though this also may have come by use and practice. In the beginning one
or other of my legs had been for ever trailing in the sea, to keep the
hen-coop from rolling over the other way; in fact, as I understand they
steer the toboggan in Canada, so I my little bark. Now the necessity for
this was gradually decreasing; whatever the cause, it was the greatest
mercy the day had brought me yet. With less strain on the attention,
however, there was more upon the mind. No longer forced to exert some
muscle twice or thrice a minute, I had time to feel very faint, and yet
time to think. My soul flew homing to its proper prison. I was no longer
any unit at unequal strife with the elements; instincts common to my
kind w