nd, finishing the verse, he looked again at me, to notice the effect
produced on me by the reverberation of the tones, which, reflected from
all sides, mixed as it were in the middle, and loaded the ear with a
confused ringing noise, similar to what I once heard when nearly drowned
in the Thames. If the man had had any intention to increase my alarm, he
could not have taken a more effectual way of compassing his intention;
for his language--the true and natural diction of spirits--responded to
by the confused ringing echoes of the bell, and acting upon a mind
already enervated by the weight of the genius of superstition, appeared
to be all that was necessary to complete the alarm which I in vain
attempted to conceal.

"All ready, Vanderhoek?" cried Mr W----.

"Ja, ja, herr," responded Vanderhoek. "Pull away, Crane-meistern."

And as the men began to work, he dashed carelessly into another stanza
of his favourite ballad. I know not if you are acquainted with German;
but I cannot resist the desire of gratifying my own ears with a
repetition of the sounds of the thrilling consonants which produced so
great an effect on me on that occasion. His voice was rough and
guttural:--

"Wann der Wein in Himmelsclang,
Wandelt mein Geklimper,
Sind Homer, and Ossian,
Gegen mich nur Stumper."

I would have called out to the man to cease his singing, had I not been
afraid of being set down for a coward. The continued sound within
prevented me from observing the motion of the bell, as it gradually
swung off the deck; but the increasing novelty of my situation, as I saw
myself suspended over the calm sea into which I was immediately to be
plunged, fixed my attention, while it increased my nervousness. I would
now have retreated, had it been in my power. The calculated knowledge of
the process of submersion, and of my absolute safety under the laws of
hydraulics, lost so much of its power under the reigning influence of
the natural instinctive horror of being plunged into the womb of the
ocean, that I thought myself on the eve of being drowned; and the same
feeling I had experienced when struggling half-dead with the waters of
the Thames took hold of me by anticipation. Meanwhile, the German
started broken snatches of his song; the bell was gradually descending;
the space of pure light between the rim and the green surface of the sea
was growing every minute less and less. It was upon that decreasing
circle of air