t my arms about for warmth and broke
my fast. When I look back I wonder that I should have taken any pains to
live. That it is possible for the human mind at any period of its
existence to be absolutely hopeless I do not believe; but I can very
honestly say that when I gazed round upon the enormous sea I was in, and
considered the size of my boat, the quantity of my provisions, and my
distance (even if I was heading that way) from the nearest point of
land, I was not sensible of the faintest stirring of hope, and viewed
myself as a dead man.

No bird came near me. Once I spied the back of a great black fish about
a quarter of a mile off. The wetness of it caught the sunshine and
reflected it like a mirror of polished steel, and the flash was so
brilliant it might have passed for a bed of white fire floating on the
blue heavings. But nothing more that was living did I meet, and such was
the vastness of the sea over which my little keel glided, in the midst
of which I sat abandoned by the angels, that for utter loneliness I
might have been the very last of the human race.

When the third night came down with sullen blasts sweeping into a steady
storming of wind, that swung a strong melancholy howl through the
gloom, it found me so weak with cold, watching, and anxiety, and the
want of space wherein to rid my limbs of the painful cramp which
weighted them with an insupportable leaden sensation, that I had barely
power to control the boat with the oar. I pined for sleep; one hour of
slumber would, I felt, give me new life, but I durst not close my eyes.
The boat was sweeping through the dark and seething seas, and her course
had to be that of an arrow, or she would capsize and be smothered in a
breath.

Maybe I fell something delirious, for I had many strange and frightful
fancies. Indeed I doubt not it was the spirit of madness--that is
certainly tonical when small--which furnished strength enough to my arm
to steer with. It was like the action of a powerful cordial in my blood,
and the very horrors it fed my brain with were an animation to my
physical qualities. The gale became a voice; it cried out my name, and
every shout of it past my ear had the sound of the word 'Despair!' I
witnessed the forms of huge phantoms flying over the boat; I watched the
beating of their giant wings of shadow and heard the thunder of their
laughter as they fled ahead, leaving scores of like monstrous shapes to
follow. There was a faint li