got up with astounding rapidity, and as it did so
the steering became increasingly difficult, especially when the stern of
the little hooker was thrown up on the crest of a sea, at which periods,
for a few breathless seconds, the rudder seemed to lose its grip on the
water, and the felucca was hurled irresistibly forward, with her bows
buried deep in the boiling foam, while she seemed hesitating whether to
broach-to to starboard or to port, either alternative of which would
have been equally disastrous, since in either case she must have
assuredly capsized and gone down. But, by what seemed nothing short of
a series of interpositions on the part of a merciful Providence, in
every case, just at the moment when a broach-to seemed imminent and
inevitable, I felt the rudder take a fresh grip on the water, and we
were again safe until the next sea overtook us. And so it continued
throughout the remaining hours of that dreadful night, with grim Death
threatening me at every upward heave of the little craft, until at
length--after what seemed to have been a very eternity of anxiety--the
day broke slowly and sullenly ahead, by which time I had grown
absolutely callous and indifferent. My nerves had been kept in a state
of acute tension so long that they seemed to have become incapable of
any further feeling of any kind, and I had ceased to care whether I
survived or not; or rather, I had become so thoroughly convinced of the
absolute impossibility of ultimate escape, that there seemed to be
nothing left worth worrying about. Moreover, I was by this time utterly
exhausted with the tremendous exertion of keeping the little craft
running straight for so long a time; for at the critical moments of
which I have spoken, the helm seemed to so nearly lose its power that it
became necessary to jam the tiller hard over, first to this side and
then to that, as the felucca seemed actually starting on a wild sheer
that must have flung her broadside-on to the sea, and so have abruptly
finished her career and mine at the same moment.

Thus was it with me when the dull and sullen dawn at length came oozing
through the mirky blackness ahead, gradually spreading along the
horizon, grey, dismal, and lowering, bringing the tattered shapes and
sooty hues of the wildly flying clouds into stronger relief, and
revealing a horizon serrated with the frenzied leapings of the angry
waters that hissed and roared around the straining felucca, chasing he