d beating violently against it with every movement
of the hull. After several ineffectual efforts, made during the lurches
of the ship, and at the imminent risk of swamping the boat I was finally
disengaged from my perilous situation and taken on board--for the body
proved to be my own. It appeared that one of the timber-bolts having
started and broken a passage through the copper, it had arrested my
progress as I passed under the ship, and fastened me in so extraordinary
a manner to her bottom. The head of the bolt had made its way through
the collar of the green baize jacket I had on, and through the back part
of my neck, forcing itself out between two sinews and just below the
right ear. I was immediately put to bed--although life seemed to be
totally extinct. There was no surgeon on board. The captain, however,
treated me with every attention--to make amends, I presume, in the eyes
of his crew, for his atrocious behaviour in the previous portion of the
adventure.

In the meantime, Henderson had again put off from the ship, although
the wind was now blowing almost a hurricane. He had not been gone many
minutes when he fell in with some fragments of our boat, and shortly
afterward one of the men with him asserted that he could distinguish a
cry for help at intervals amid the roaring of the tempest. This induced
the hardy seamen to persevere in their search for more than half an
hour, although repeated signals to return were made them by Captain
Block, and although every moment on the water in so frail a boat was
fraught to them with the most imminent and deadly peril. Indeed, it is
nearly impossible to conceive how the small jolly they were in could
have escaped destruction for a single instant. She was built, however,
for the whaling service, and was fitted, as I have since had reason to
believe, with air-boxes, in the manner of some life-boats used on the
coast of Wales.

After searching in vain for about the period of time just mentioned,
it was determined to get back to the ship. They had scarcely made this
resolve when a feeble cry arose from a dark object that floated rapidly
by. They pursued and soon overtook it. It proved to be the entire deck
of the Ariel's cuddy. Augustus was struggling near it, apparently in the
last agonies. Upon getting hold of him it was found that he was attached
by a rope to the floating timber. This rope, it will be remembered, I
had myself tied around his waist, and made fast to a r