ows.

He was conscious of the blackness of his crime, which indeed was of the
deepest dye, and that he had never till then experienced the arm of
vengeance. He shuddered as the violence of the tempest increased.

He had braved the seas--he had fought with the enemies of his country;
but never did fear paralyze the daring Cedric before. He fell senseless
on the deck entangled in the shattered cordage, whereby he was preserved
from being washed overboard by the mountain billows, which every moment
engulfed the vessel, threatening immediate destruction to all on board.

The murkiest cloud that ever hid the skies from the view of man, now
rode in universal blackness over the horror-stricken crew, which,
opening every pore, as though at once to overwhelm creation, poured
forth its contents like one vast sea descending to overflow another. The
winds gathered from every quarter with unparalleled fury. Thunders
rolled with that incessant clamour which pervades a field of earthly
battle; but artillery, whose dreadful note hath made the hardiest and
the boldest quake, utters with but feeble voice to that which that night
growled on the craggy shores of India. And lightnings fell, as when
Elijah called on heaven to answer him, and fire descended to proclaim
the true Jehovah's name, and hail the one true prophet!

The Levantine now struck with tremendous force against a rock, which lay
concealed amidst the swelling waters, and instantaneously disappeared,
leaving the wretched crew floating on the surface--borne on the billows!

Cedric, by the tumultuous fury of the element, was thrown on a shelf of
one of the steep rocks which form a natural barrier between the sea and
land; being recovered from his stupor, he was again awake to the horrors
that surrounded him; what had become of his comrades he knew not--he
thought not. He clung to a fragment of the precipice with the
desperation and firm grasp of madness--while every successive tide that
rolled over his head became stronger and stronger.

He counted the billows as they passed over him; he watched the receding
wave--he looked sternly at the approaching one. Time with him was fast
ebbing. The wave that was to wash him into eternity was already curling
towards him in fearful whiteness, which the glare of lightnings that
seemed to illuminate the universe showed him in all its terrors.

At the same time he distinguished a towering rock which the darkness had
hitherto obscured, b