ng in wait, the sea, hissing and foaming,
leaped in, and all became darkness and surging water to Ben-Hur.

It cannot be said that the young Jew helped himself in this
stress. Besides his usual strength, he had the indefinite extra
force which nature keeps in reserve for just such perils to life;
yet the darkness, and the whirl and roar of water, stupefied him.
Even the holding his breath was involuntary.

The influx of the flood tossed him like a log forward into the
cabin, where he would have drowned but for the refluence of the
sinking motion. As it was, fathoms under the surface the hollow
mass vomited him forth, and he arose along with the loosed debris.
In the act of rising, he clutched something, and held to it. The time
he was under seemed an age longer than it really was; at last he
gained the top; with a great gasp he filled his lungs afresh, and,
tossing the water from his hair and eyes, climbed higher upon the
plank he held, and looked about him.

Death had pursued him closely under the waves; he found it waiting
for him when he was risen--waiting multiform.

Smoke lay upon the sea like a semitransparent fog, through which
here and there shone cores of intense brilliance. A quick intelligence
told him that they were ships on fire. The battle was yet on; nor could
he say who was victor. Within the radius of his vision now and then
ships passed, shooting shadows athwart lights. Out of the dun clouds
farther on he caught the crash of other ships colliding. The danger,
however, was closer at hand. When the Astroea went down, her deck,
it will be recollected, held her own crew, and the crews of the
two galleys which had attacked her at the same time, all of whom
were ingulfed. Many of them came to the surface together, and on
the same plank or support of whatever kind continued the combat,
begun possibly in the vortex fathoms down. Writhing and twisting
in deadly embrace, sometimes striking with sword or javelin, they
kept the sea around them in agitation, at one place inky-black,
at another aflame with fiery reflections. With their struggles he
had nothing to do; they were all his enemies: not one of them but
would kill him for the plank upon which he floated. He made haste
to get away.

About that time he heard oars in quickest movement, and beheld a
galley coming down upon him. The tall prow seemed doubly tall,
and the red light playing upon its gilt and carving gave it an
appearance of snaky life. Unde