yself in the sloop again. The crew plied the oars in silence,
and we heard nothing but the hissing of the enormous billows as they
gently rose up, and slowly subsided again, without breaking. At
intervals our boat was elevated far above the surface of the ocean,
and remained for a few moments trembling upon the pinnacle of a surge,
from which it would quietly descend into a gulf so deep and awful that
we often thought the dense black mass of waters which formed its sides
were on the point of over-arching us, and bursting upon our heads. We
glided with regular undulations from one billow to another; but every
time we sank into the trough of the sea my heart died within me, for I
felt as if we were going lower down than we had ever done before, and
clung instinctively to the board on which I sat.

Notwithstanding my terrors, I frequently looked towards the sloop. The
fragments of her mainsail, which remained attached to the yard, and
fluttered in the wind, enabled us to discern exactly where she lay,
and showed, by their motion, that she pitched about in a terrible
manner. We occasionally heard the voice of her unfortunate commander,
calling to us in tones of frantic derision, and by turns vociferating
curses and blasphemous oaths, and singing sea-songs with a wild and
frightful energy. I sometimes almost wished that the crew would
make another effort to save him, but next moment the principle
of self-preservation repressed all feelings of humanity, and I
endeavoured, by closing my ears, to banish the idea of his sufferings
from my mind.

After a little time the shivering canvass disappeared, and we heard a
tumultuous roaring and bursting of billows, and saw an unusual
sparkling of the sea about a quarter of a mile from us. One of the
sailors cried out that the sloop was now on her beam ends, and that
the noise to which we listened was that of the waves breaking over
her. We could sometimes perceive a large black mass heaving itself up
irregularly among the flashing surges, and then disappearing for a few
moments, and knew but too well that it was the hull of the vessel. At
intervals a shrill and agonised voice uttered some exclamations, but
we could not distinguish what they were, and then a long-drawn shriek
came across the ocean, which suddenly grew more furiously agitated
near the spot where the sloop lay, and in a few moments she sank down,
and a black wave formed itself out of the waters that had engulfed
her, and