the shouts of my messmates.

I was so blinded by the water that I could not immediately see. I spun
around and around as in a whirlpool, for I had been caught in the
eddies under the stern. I looked to windward, too, for the ship;
forgetting that a heavy vessel would make more leeway than my light
person. Just as I sunk in the trough of the sea, however, I caught
sight of the tall spars pitching a short distance to leeward; and when
I rose on the next wave I took care to have my eyes fixed in that
direction. I could now behold the men in the rigging on the look-out,
and hear again distinctly their eager and excited cries. They were all
gazing to leeward, and consequently could not see me.

"Whereaway is he?"

"I can't see him--can you?"

"There--he has just sunk in the trough--no! it was not he."

"Hillo!"

"Hil-hil-loa!"

While these cries were following each other, the skipper himself came
on deck, and springing on the tafferel cast a rapid glance around the
horizon. I thought his eye had lighted on me, for, unlike the rest, he
turned to windward; but, after a hasty glance in the right direction,
he, too, looked off to leeward. How my heart sunk within me! Was I to
perish, and within hearing too, in consequence of this mistake of my
messmates? I raised my voice and shouted. I could still hear the
answers.

"Ahoy!--aho-o-y!"

"There--that was his voice certainly--can't you see him yet?"

"Ahoy!--ahoy!--aho-o-y!" I repeated, straining my lungs to the utmost.

"Hillo!" replied the stentorian voice of the skipper, the words
struggling faintly against the wind.

The ship was rapidly drifting down to leeward, and I knew that if not
soon discovered I was lost, so I shouted again.

"Aho-o-y!--A-hoy!--A-hoy!--Aho-o-y!"

The last word was frantically prolonged, and I watched its effect for
a full minute with intense anxiety. It was evident from the manner in
which my comrades on board glanced anew around the horizon, as also
from the shouts which they uttered in reply, that my cry had reached
them. I could not indeed hear their hail, but saw their hands to their
mouths as when persons shout loudly. Alas! the same fatal error of
still looking in the wrong direction prevailed among them: not an eye
was turned to windward. My heart died within me.

"Oh, God!" I cried, "they do not hear me, and I am lost. My mother--my
poor, poor mother."

I forgot to mention that, on my falling overboard, the cook, who had
b