cargo of empty oil-casks would not sink, I had been hitherto so confused
in mind as to have overlooked this consideration altogether; and the
danger which I had for some time regarded as the most imminent was
that of foundering. As hope revived within me, I made use of every
opportunity to strengthen the lashings which held me to the remains
of the windlass, and in this occupation I soon discovered that my
companions were also busy. The night was as dark as it could possibly
be, and the horrible shrieking din and confusion which surrounded us it
is useless to attempt describing. Our deck lay level with the sea, or
rather we were encircled with a towering ridge of foam, a portion of
which swept over us even instant. It is not too much to say that our
heads were not fairly out of the water more than one second in three.
Although we lay close together, no one of us could see the other,
or, indeed, any portion of the brig itself, upon which we were so
tempestuously hurled about. At intervals we called one to the other,
thus endeavouring to keep alive hope, and render consolation and
encouragement to such of us as stood most in need of it. The feeble
condition of Augustus made him an object of solicitude with us all; and
as, from the lacerated condition of his right arm, it must have been
impossible for him to secure his lashings with any degree of
firmness, we were in momentary expectation of finding that he had gone
overboard--yet to render him aid was a thing altogether out of the
question. Fortunately, his station was more secure than that of any
of the rest of us; for the upper part of his body lying just beneath
a portion of the shattered windlass, the seas, as they tumbled in upon
him, were greatly broken in their violence. In any other situation than
this (into which he had been accidentally thrown after having lashed
himself in a very exposed spot) he must inevitably have perished before
morning. Owing to the brig's lying so much along, we were all less
liable to be washed off than otherwise would have been the case. The
heel, as I have before stated, was to larboard, about one half of the
deck being constantly under water. The seas, therefore, which struck us
to starboard were much broken, by the vessel's side, only reaching us
in fragments as we lay flat on our faces; while those which came from
larboard being what are called back-water seas, and obtaining little
hold upon us on account of our posture, had not suff