ought that this was my last sight on earth, and I could only
hope that the life which was so swiftly approaching its end might live
again somewhere among those glittering orbs. So I thought; and with
these thoughts I drifted on, I cannot tell how long, until at length
there appeared a vast black mass, where the open sky above me
terminated, and where the lustre of the stars and the light of the
heavens were all swallowed up in utter darkness.

This, then, I thought, is the end. Here, amid this darkness, I must
make the awful plunge and find my death I fell upon my knees in the
bottom of the boat and prayed. As I knelt there the boat drew nearer,
the black mass grew blacker. The current swept me on. There were no
breakers; there was no phosphorescent sparkle of seething waters, and
no whiteness of foam. I thought that I was on the brink of some
tremendous cataract a thousand times deeper than Niagara; some fall
where the waters plunged into the depths of the earth; and where,
gathering for the terrific descent, all other movements--all dashings
and writhings and twistings--were obliterated and lost in the one
overwhelming onward rush. Suddenly all grew dark--dark beyond all
expression; the sky above was in a moment snatched from view; I had
been flung into some tremendous cavern; and there, on my knees, with
terror in my heart, I waited for death.

The moments passed, and death delayed to come. The awful plunge was
still put off; and though I remained on my knees and waited long,
still the end came not. The waters seemed still, the boat motionless.
It was borne upon the surface of a vast stream as smooth as glass; but
who could tell how deep that stream was, or how wide? At length I rose
from my knees and sank down upon the seat of the boat, and tried to
peer through the gloom. In vain. Nothing was visible. It was the very
blackness of darkness. I listened, but heard nothing save a deep,
dull, droning sound, which seemed to fill all the air and make it
all tremulous with its vibrations. I tried to collect my thoughts. I
recalled that old theory which had been in my mind before this, and
which I had mentioned to Agnew. This was the notion that at each pole
there is a vast opening; that into one of them all the waters of the
ocean pour themselves, and, after passing through the earth, come out
at the other pole, to pass about its surface in innumerable streams.
It was a wild fancy, which I had laughed at under other circu