the agony of horror that froze my blood, I
instinctively thrust my helm hard down and flattened in the sheets fore
and aft; for the thought came to me that, perchance, a few fathoms out
there, veiled from sight in the soft, velvet blackness of the night,
some poor wretch--a victim, like myself, to the fury of the late gale--
clinging desperately to a fragment of wreckage, might have caught a
glimpse of the longboat's sails, sliding blackly along against the
stars, and have emitted those terrible cries as a last despairing appeal
for help and succour. Accordingly, as the boat swept round and came to
the wind, careening gunwale-to as she felt the full strength of the
night breeze in her dew-sodden canvas, I sprang to my feet and, clapping
both hands funnel-wise to my mouth, sent forth a hail:

"Ahoy, there! where are you? Keep up your courage, for help is at hand.
Where are you, I say? Let me but know where to look for you and I'll
soon be alongside. Shout again; for I can see no sign of you. Ahoy,
there! _Ahoy_!! Ahoy!!!"

The sound of my own voice, coming immediately after that terrible
thrice-repeated cry, seemed somehow comforting and reassuring, and I now
awaited a reply to my hail with a feeling in which there was more of
curiosity than horror. But no reply came; and I once more lifted up my
voice in tones of appeal and encouragement. Then, since I failed to
evoke any response, I put the boat's helm down, and tacked, the
conviction being strong within me that I could hit off, to an inch, the
exact spot from which those dreadful sounds had come. So firmly
convinced, indeed, was I of my ability to do this that when the boat
came round I left the staysail sheet fast to windward, eased off the
fore sheet, and stood by, leaning over the lee gunwale, in readiness to
seize and haul inboard the drowning wretch who, I was fully persuaded,
must be now almost under the boat's bilge. But, although the starlight
was sufficiently brilliant to have betrayed, at a distance of seven or
eight yards, the presence of such an object as a man clinging to a piece
of floating wreckage, I could see nothing, no, not even so much as a
scrap of floating weed. That I was bitterly disappointed--and also
somewhat frightened--I freely admit; for I had somehow succeeded in
convincing myself that those terrifying sounds had issued from the
throat of a human being so close at hand that I could not possibly fail
to find him; yet I had _n