h took a deep purple dye, flecked with
foam. The spot where I stood, looked, on one side, to the wide-spread
ocean; on the other, it was barred by a rugged promontory. Round this
cape suddenly came, driven by the wind, a vessel. In vain the mariners
tried to force a path for her to the open sea--the gale drove her on the
rocks. It will perish!--all on board will perish!--would I were among
them! And to my young heart the idea of death came for the first time
blended with that of joy. It was an awful sight to behold that vessel
struggling with her fate. Hardly could I discern the sailors, but I
heard them. It was soon all over!--A rock, just covered by the tossing
waves, and so unperceived, lay in wait for its prey. A crash of thunder
broke over my head at the moment that, with a frightful shock, the skiff
dashed upon her unseen enemy. In a brief space of time she went to
pieces. There I stood in safety; and there were my fellow-creatures,
battling, now hopelessly, with annihilation. Methought I saw them
struggling--too truly did I hear their shrieks, conquering the barking
surges in their shrill agony. The dark breakers threw hither and thither
the fragments of the wreck; soon it disappeared. I had been fascinated
to gaze till the end: at last I sank on my knees--I covered my face with
my hands: I again looked up; something was floating on the billows
towards the shore. It neared and neared. Was that a human form?--it grew
more distinct; and at last a mighty wave, lifting the whole freight,
lodged it upon a rock. A human being bestriding a sea-chest!--A human
being!--Yet was it one? Surely never such had existed before--a
misshapen dwarf, with squinting eyes, distorted features, and body
deformed, till it became a horror to behold. My blood, lately warming
towards a fellow-being so snatched from a watery tomb, froze in my
heart. The dwarf got off his chest; he tossed his straight, straggling
hair from his odious visage.

"By St. Beelzebub!" he exclaimed, "I have been well bested." He looked
round, and saw me, "Oh, by the fiend! here is another ally of the mighty
one. To what saint did you offer prayers, friend--if not to mine? Yet I
remember you not on board."

I shrank from the monster and his blasphemy. Again he questioned me, and
I muttered some inaudible reply. He continued:----

"Your voice is drowned by this dissonant roar. What a noise the big
ocean makes! Schoolboys bursting from their prison are not louder th